AT the end of his first month young Traill looked back, as it were from
the top of a hill, and thought that it all had been very pleasant. How
much of this pleasantness was due to Isabel (although he had seen her
during that period extremely seldom) and how much of it was due to his
agreeable acceptance of things as they were without any very definite
challenge to them to be different, it is impossible to say.
The crowded day had of course something to do with it: the fact that
there was never from the first harsh clanging of the bell down the stone
passages at half-past six to the last leap into bed, jumping as it were
from a heap of Latin exercises and the cold challenge of Perrin's voice
as he went round the dormitories turning lights out—never a moment's
pause to think about anything extra at all. But he was in no way a
reflective person. He saw that his own small boys in their untidy,
scrambling kind of way liked him and that the bigger boys of the Upper
Fourth, to whom he taught French twice a week, revered him because of
his football.
The masters at the Upper School seemed pleasant fellows, although he
might, had he thought about it, have perceived dimly an atmosphere of
unrest and discomfort in their common room.
With Moy-Thompson as yet he had had no dealings at all. He had been to
supper there once on Sunday night, had been appalled by the dreariness
of the whole affair, the shrivelled ill-temper of Moy-Thompson's parents
(aged about ninety apiece), the inadequacy of the food, the melancholy
inertia of Mrs. Moy-Thompson; but he had had no nearer relations with
him.
He had, indeed, already begun to perceive that in his own common room
things were not quite as they should be. He was always an exceedingly
equable and easy-tempered person, and he had been surprised at himself
on several occasions for being irritated at very unimportant and
insignificant details. There were, for instance, the incidents of the
bath and the morning papers. Both of these incidents derived their
irritation from their original connection with Perrin, and this might
have led him, had he thought about it, to the discovery that he did not
like Perrin and that Perrin did not like him. But he never dwelt upon
things—he was always thinking of the matter immediately in hand, and
where there was an empty reflective quarter of an hour his eyes were on
Isabel.
The incident of the bath was, it might have been thought,
inconsiderable.
Perrin's bedroom was next to Traill's. Opposite their doors, on the
other side of the passage, was a bathroom containing two baths. In this
bathroom Traill always arrived some minutes after Perrin. Try as he
might, he never succeeded in arriving first. Perrin always filled both
baths, one with hot and one with cold, and stood moodily, his naked
body gaunt and bony in the gray light, watching them whilst they filled.
Traill was forced to wait until Perrin had had both his baths before he
could have his. At first it had seemed a small matter. Gradually as
the days passed the irritation grew. There was something in Perrin's
complacent immobility as he stood above his bath that was of itself
annoying. Why should a man wait? One morning they rushed out together.
There were words.
“I say, Perrin, why not have hot and cold in the same bath?”
“Really, Traill, it isn't, I should have thought, quite your place....”
Traill sometimes dreamt early in the morning of French exercises, of the
midday mutton, of Perrin's bony, ugly body watching the bath. If Traill
had thought about it, he would have seen that Perrin did not like him.
The incident of the morning paper was equally trivial. Dormer always had
breakfast in his own house, and that left therefore three of them. They
clubbed together and provided three newspapers—the Morning Post, the
Daily Mail, and a local affair. It was obvious that the person who came
in last was left with the local paper. Perrin generally came in last,
because he took early prep, in the Upper School, and he expected that
the Morning Post should be left for him. But Traill, as he paid the same
subscription as Perrin, did not see why this should be. Clinton always
took the Daily Mail, and therefore Perrin had to be contented with the
Cornish News. There was at last an argument. Traill refused to give way.
The rest of the meal was eaten in absolute silence. Perrin came no more
to Traill's room for an evening chat—a very small matter.
But at the end of the first month Traill did not see these things as in
any way ominous. He could keep his boys in order. He liked his game of
football; he was in a glow because he was in love—moreover, he had never
quarreled with anyone in his life. He did not know that he had made any
progress with Isabel. It was very difficult to see her. She came down
sometimes to watch them play football; after Chapel in the evening, he
had walked up the little dark lane with her, the stars above the dark,
cloudy trees, and the leaves a carpet about their feet—and at every
meeting he loved her more. When he had spare hours in the afternoon he
liked to walk to the Brown Wood or down to the sea. Once or twice he
bicycled over to Pendragon and had tea with the Trojans. Sir Henry
Trojan was a man who had appealed to him immensely. In spite of his size
and strength and simplicity, his air of a man who lived out of doors and
read little, he had a tremendous poetic passion for Cornwall. He showed
Traill a great many things that were new to him. He began to feel
a sense of color; he saw the Brown Wood, the twisting, gray-roofed
village, the sweeping, striving sea with fresh vision. He stopped
sometimes in his walks and drew a deep breath at the way that the lights
and colors were hung about him. Of course the contrast of his school
life drove these other things against him—and also his love for Isabel.
These little things would have no importance were it not that they all
helped to blind him to his true relations with Perrin. He did not think
about Perrin at all; he did not think about his life even in any very
definite way.
He never analyzed things; he took things and used them.
And then at the end of that first month Birkland talked in the most
amazing way.... II.
Traill had been attached to Birkland from the first. The man had
definite personality—aggressive in its influence—and contempt of the
rest of the common room, but they justified it to some extent by their
own terror of his tongue and their eager criticism of him behind his
back.
He had treated Traill like the rest, but then Traill never noticed it.
He was not afraid of Birkland, he never resented his criticism, and he
appreciated his humor.
And then suddenly one evening Birkland asked him to come and see him.
His room was untidy—littered with school-books, exercise-books, stacks
of paper to be corrected; but behind this curtain of discomfort there
were signs of other earlier things: some etchings, dusty and uncared
for, sets of Meredith and Pater, some photographs, and a large engraving
of Whistler's portrait of his mother. The latticed window was open, and
from the night outside, blowing into the gusty candles, there were the
scent of decaying leaves and a faint breath of the distant sea.
Birkland was thin—sticks of legs and arms; a short, wiry mustache;
heavy, overhanging eyebrows; thin, straight, stiff hair turning a little
gray. He gave Traill a drink, watched him fill a pipe; and then, huddled
in his armchair, his legs crossed under him, his eyes full on the open
window and the night sky, he asked Traill questions.
“And so you like it?”
“Yes—immensely!”
“Why?”
“Well—why not? After all, it gives a fellow what he wants. There's
plenty of exercise—the hours are healthy—the fellows are quite nice
fellows. I like teaching.”
Traill gave a sigh of satisfaction, and, after all, he had omitted his
principal reason.
“Yes. How long do you mean to stay here?”
“Oh! a year, I suppose. Then I ought to get to Clifton.”
“Yes. You'd better not tell the Head that, though. How do you like the
other men?”
“Oh, I think they 're very good fellows. Dormer's splendid.”
“Yes—and Perrin?”
“Oh! he's all right. He seems to get annoyed pretty easily. As a matter
of fact, I have felt rather irritated once or twice.”
“Yes—everyone's wanted to cut Perrin's throat some time or other. As a
matter of fact, I shouldn't wonder if it was n't the other way round—one
day.”
There was a pause, and then Birkland said, “And so you like it.”
“Yes, of course; don't you?”
Birkland laughed. There was a long pause. Then Traill said again, rather
uncertainly, “Don't you?”
He had never thought of Birkland as an unhappy man—as a matter of fact
he never thought of people as being definite kinds of people, and he
scarcely ever read novels.
Then Birkland spoke: “You had better not ask me that, young man, if you
want an encouraging answer.”
Then very slowly, after another pause, the words came out: “I'm going
to speak the truth to you to-night for the good and safety of your soul,
and I haven't cared for the good and safety of anyone's soul for—well!—I
should be afraid to say how long. I'm afraid—I don't really care very
much about the safety of yours—but I care enough to speak to you; and
the one thing I say to you is—get out—get away. Fly for your life.” His
voice sank to a whisper. “If you don't, you will die very soon—in a year
perhaps. We are all dead here, and we died a great many years ago.”
Traill moved uncomfortably in his chair. He smiled across the flickering
candles at Birkland.
“Oh! I say,” he said, “that's a bit of exaggeration, isn't it? I suppose
one is tired sometimes, of course; but, after all, there are a good many
men in the country who make a pretty good thing out of mastering and are
n't so very miserable.”
It was evident that he thought that it was all a kind of joke on
Birkland's part. He pulled contentedly at his pipe.
But the other man went on: “I shouldn't have said this at all if I
hadn't meant it, and if I hadn't got twenty years of experience behind
me to prove what I say. I don't know why I'm bothering you, I'm sure;
but now I've begun I'm going on, and you've got to listen. You can't
say you haven't been given your chance. Have you ever looked round the
common room and seen what kind of men they are?”
“Of course,” said Traill; “but,” he added modestly, “I'm not observant,
you know. I'm not at all a clever kind of chap.”
“Well, you would have seen what I'm telling you written in their faces
right enough. Mind you—what I'm saying to you doesn't apply to the
first-class public school. That's a different kind of thing altogether.
I'm talking about places like Moffatt's—places that are trying to be
what they are not—to do what they can't do—to get higher than they can
reach. There are thousands of them all over the country—places where
the men are underpaid, with no prospects, herded together, all of them
hating each other, wanting, perhaps, towards the end of term, to cut
each other's throats. Do you suppose that that is good for the boys they
teach?”
He paused and relit his pipe, and his voice was, too, measured, but
showing in its tensity his emotion.
“It's a different thing with the bigger places. There, there is more
room; the men don't live so close together; they are paid better; there
is a chance of getting a house; there is the esprit de corps of the
school... but here, my God!”
Birkland bent forward, his face white, over the candles.
“Get out of it, Traill, you fool! You say, in a year's time. Don't I
know that? Do you suppose that I meant to stay here for ever when I
came? But one postpones moving. Another term will be better, or you try
for a thing, fail, and get discouraged... and then suddenly you are too
old—too old at thirty-three—earning two hundred a year... too old! and
liable to be turned out with a week's notice if the Head doesn't like
you—turned out with nothing to go to; and he knows that you are afraid
of him and he has games with you.”
Traill stared at the little man's burning eyes. How odd of Birkland to
talk like this!
“You think you will escape, but already the place has its fingers about
you. You will be a different man at the end of the term. You will be
allowed no friends here, only enemies. You think the rest of us like
you. Well, for a moment perhaps, but only for a moment. Soon something
will come... already you dislike Perrin. You must not be friends with
the Head, because then we shall think that you are spying on us. You
must not be friends with us, because then the Head will hear of it and
will immediately hate you because he will think that you are conspiring
against him. You must not be friends with the boys, because then we
shall all hate you and they will despise you. You will be quite alone.
You think that you are going to teach with freshness and interest—you
are full of eager plans, new ideas. Every plan, every idea, will
be immediately killed. You must not have them—they are not good for
examinations—you are trying to show that you are superior.”
Birkland paused. Traill moved uneasily in his chair.
“Wait! You must hear me out. It all goes deeper than these things. It
is murder—self-murder. You are going to kill—you have got to kill—every
fine thought, every hope, that you possess. You will be laughed at for
your ambitions, your desires. You will not even be allowed any fine
vices. You must never go anywhere, because you are neglecting your
work. You have no time. Here we are—fifteen men—all hating each other,
loathing everything that the other man does—the way he eats, the way
he moves, the way he teaches. We sleep next door to each other, we eat
together, we meet all day until late at night—hating each other.”
“After all,” said Traill, still smiling, “it is only a month or two, and
there are holidays.”
“If term lasted another week or two,” went on Birkland quietly, “murder
would be committed. The holidays come, and you go out into the world to
find that you are different from all other men—to find that they know
that you are different. You are patronizing, narrow, egotistic. You
realize it slowly; you see them shunning you—and then back you go again.
God knows, they should not hate us—these others! they should pity us.
If you marry, see what it is—look at Mrs. Dormer, Mrs. Comber, Mrs.
Moy-Thompson. Look at their husbands, their life. There is marriage—no
money, no prospects, perhaps in the end starvation! And gradually there
creeps over you a dreadful and horrible inertia: you do not care—you do
not think—you are a ghost. If one of us dies, we do not mind—we do not
think about it. Only, towards the end of the term, when the examinations
come, there creeps about the place a new devil. All our nerve is gone;
our hatred of each other begins to be active. It is the end-of-termy
devil.... Another week or two, and there is no knowing what we might do.
We are all tired, horribly tired. Be careful then what you do and what
you say.”
“My word!” said Traill, filling his pipe, “what a horrible picture of
things! You must be out of sorts. Why, it's hysteria!”
Birkland had crawled back into his chair again. He puffed at his pipe.
“Oh! of course you don't see it!” he said. “After all, why should you?
But it's true, every word of it. Oh! I'm resigned enough now. Besides,
it's the beginning of the term. I'm inclined to think it's untrue,
myself, just now. Wait and see. Watch White after he's had an interview
with the Head—see Perrin and Comber together later on—study Mrs. Comber.
But don't you bother. You won't listen to me—why should you? Only, in
ten years' time you 'll remember.”
After that they talked of other things. Birkland was rather amusing in
his sharp, caustic way.
“I say,” said Traill as he stood by the door on the way out, “that was
all rot; was n't it?”
“What was?” asked Birkland.
“Why, about the place—this place.”
“All rot!” said Birkland gravely. III.
But of course one dismisses these things very soon—especially, and
immediately, if the person in question is Archie Traill.
Why think about a problematic and depressing forty? Take these men
that Birkland so gloomily points to as disappointing and unsatisfactory
exceptions. Life is like that. There are always the riders who collapse
into ditches and sit there mumbling, wishing for the company, down in
the dirt and the grime, of their fellow-horsemen.
Meanwhile there is this fine autumn weather. Birkland remains a crabbed
shadow; life is sharp, pungent—formed with faint blue skies, dim and
shining like clear glass with a hard yellow sun stuck like a tethered
balloon between saucer-clouds.
Archie Traill, on a free afternoon—an early frost had made the ground
too hard for football—in the week after that Birkland evening, stood in
the village street as the church clock struck half-past three, and he
thanked God for a half-holiday.
The air was so still that the distant mining stamps and the breaking sea
had it for the plain of their unceasing war, cannon against cannon,
and the withdrawing rattle of their rival shot echoing against the blue
horizon and the stiff side of the Brown Hill. The village cobbles shone
and glittered; the gray roofs lay like carpets spread to dry. The brown
church tower seemed to sway—so motionless was the rest of the world—with
the clatter of its chiming clocks.
Suddenly Isabel Desart turned the corner. “Good afternoon, Mr. Traill,”
and the clasp of her hand was strong and clean as all the rest of her
movements. She smiled at him as she always smiled, a little ironically
and also a little seriously, as though she found the world a strange
place, ought to think it a solemn one, but couldn't help finding it
funny.
Three old women, their skirts kilted about them, their eyes fixed on
vacancy, flung their voices into the silence like balls against a board.
“And she only sixteen—what a size!”
“Only sixteen!—to think of it!”
“With her great legs and all!”
“Only sixteen...!”
The man and woman moved up the road together. She was usually so full
of things to say that her silence surprised him. The thought that his
presence could possibly be agitating to her, and therefore responsible,
drove the blood to his head, and then he rebuked himself for a
presumptuous fool. But if he had spoken, he would have had to tell her
that he loved her—and it was n't time yet.
But at last he broke against the silence very quietly. “We must talk,
one of us—it is so wonderfully quiet that it's alarming.”
She turned round to him, and suddenly, so that he stopped in the road
and looked at her, she put her hand on his arm.
“We are both so frightfully young,” she said.
“Why, yes,” he said, laughing at her; “but why not?”
“Why, for the things that we 'll have to do. You for the boys, and I for
my poor Mrs. Comber. I had thought when I saw you first that you were
going to be old enough, but I don't think you are.”
“I know that I can't—” he began.
“Oh! it isn't for anything that you can't do!” she broke in. “It's
just because you don't see it—why should you? You 're too much in the
middle—I suppose it's only outsiders who can really understand. But I
get so depressed sometimes with it all that I think that I will leave it
and go back to London and never come here again. One doesn't seem to
be any use—no use at all. And it all seems worse in the autumn somehow.
Poor Mr. Traill! I always happen to be gloomy when you catch me, and I'm
not gloomy really in the least.”
“But what is it all about? And don't go to London, please. You mustn't
think of it.”
He was so much in earnest that she turned and looked at him. “Why?” she
said gravely. “Do you like my being here?” And then, before he could say
anything, she added, reflectively, “Well, that's one, at any rate.
“I have to go in here,” she said, stopping before a gate with a drive
behind it. “Tea, you understand.” Then she gave him her hand. “Although
you don't in the least know what I mean, you 're a help,” she said; “and
I shall look across the chapel floor in the evening and know that I have
a friend. Sometimes when I'm down here—out of it—and everything's so
fresh and clear, like to-night, I think that it can't be true—the things
that go on. Oh! I'm so sorry for them, all of them.” She went through
the gate and looked back at him. “But I don't want to have to be sorry
for you as well—please,” she added, and was lost in the trees.
But he, in his triumphant, buoyant sensation of things having moved
a step—or even a good many steps further—was ready that she should be
sorry or have any sensation whatever so long as she thought of him. Her
claiming Chapel-time as a meeting-ground made that somewhat irritating
and so swiftly recurrent a ceremonial a thrice-blessed moment to which
he might eagerly look forward throughout the day. But it is not my
intention to give you all his symptoms—his passion is in no way
the chief point; it was simply one of the things that helped in the
culminating issue.
Isabel, meanwhile, found that throughout the tea-party her little
conversation with Traill ran in her head. It was not a very interesting
tea-party—three old ladies who regarded her as something very dangerous
and alarming and offered her cake as though they expected it to turn
into a bomb in her hands. She looked at their comfortable fire, their
dark, cozy drawing-room, their caps and shawls, with the eye of someone
whose passage through that country was very swift and whose language
was not theirs. The dancing glow of the firelight, the tinkle of
the tea-things, the softness of the rugs at her feet, were not the
expression of her idea of life, and she flung them away from her and
thought of Moffatt's and the night outside. Throughout their soft and
courteous speech her mind was with Traill. He had said, “Don't go to
London, please,” and he had meant it—it was almost as though he had
appealed to her from a sudden vision that he had of all that was in
front of him. She knew, of course—she had seen it happen so very often
before; and perceived that for this man, too, with his bright, eager
challenge of life, his absurdly young notion of the way that things
would be certain to be simple when they were never simple at all, grim,
baffling disappointment was at hand. To her those red walls of Moffatt's
were alive, moving—crushing, as in some story that she had once read,
relentlessly the victims that were hidden within. Perhaps he had
suddenly seen or understood something of that—there had come to him
some forewarning. Her cheek reddened at the thought and her breath came
quickly. She liked him—she had liked him from the first—she liked him
very much; and if he wanted her to help him, she would do all that she
could. She said good-by to the three old ladies and left them behind her
with a little humorous laugh. It was right that there should be three
old ladies living like that, so cozily and comfortably, with their fires
and their carpets, at the very foot of Moffatt's. How little people
realized! These old ladies with their park gates and long drive! How
they would roll up in their carriage!... and the Moffatt's!
It was dark, and the long hill that stretched above her was black and
ominous. The lights of Moffatt's showed, to the right at the top, and
the darker shape of its buildings cut the lighter gray of the sky. There
was a lamp-post at the corner of the road, and as she closed the gates
behind her with a clang she heard a voice say, “Good evening, Miss
Desart,” and saw that Mr. Perrin was at her side. Mr. Perrin always made
her feel nervous, and now, in the dark, she instinctively shrank back,
but it was only for an instant, and she was immediately ashamed of
her fears. She could not see his face, but she fancied that his voice
trembled—-he seemed troubled about something; and then that feeling of
pity that she had for him before came upon her again, and her voice was
softer and more tender.
“It was—um—a great piece of good fortune for me that I should be passing
just when you were coming out—a great piece of good fortune.”
He seemed very nervous.
“And for me too,” she said; “this hill grows extraordinarily dark, and I
stayed on longer than I ought to have done. Have you been paying calls,
too?”
“Oh, no! I—um—never pay calls—merely a stroll down to the village to buy
some tobacco—merely that—nothing more... yes, merely that... simply some
tobacco.”
She felt his agitation, and wished that the top of the hill might
be reached as speedily as possible, but she fancied a little that he
lingered. She hastened her steps.
“I'm not sure that it is n't raining—I felt a drop just now, I
thought—and it was such a lovely afternoon.”
“Oh, no, I assure you—” and then he suddenly stopped.
She was frightened—quite unreasonably. She wanted to reach the warmth
and light of Mrs. Comber's drawing-room as soon as possible and escape
from this strange, awkward man.
She broke the silence. “How is Mr. Traill getting on at the Lower
School? I hope you all like him. The boys seem to have taken to him; but
then, of course, his football is a quick road to favor.”
Mr. Perrin seemed to be swallowing his teeth. He coughed and choked.
“Ah, well, yes, Traill—young, of course, young, and one can only learn
by experience. Perhaps just a little inclined to be cock-sure—dangerous
thing to be too certain—a fault of youth, of course.”
“Oh, I've found him,” said Isabel, “very modest and pleasant. Of course,
I haven't seen very much of him, but I must say that what I 've seen of
him I've liked.”
They were nearly at the top of the hill; the big black gates cut the
horizon.
In the light of the lamps at the corner of the road Isabel saw Mr.
Perrin's face. It looked very white under the gaslight, and he was
clenching and unclenching his hands. His cap was on one side, his tie
had risen at the back above his collar... his eyes were looking into
hers and beseeching her like the eyes of a dumb animal.
They had come to the gates.
“Miss Desart...”
They both came to a halt in the road.
“Yes?” she said, smiling at him.
“I want you to... I'd be awfully glad one day if...”
He stopped again desperately.
“What can I do?” she said, still smiling at him. He looked so odd,
standing there in the dark, silent road... his hands restless. His eyes
had moved from her face and were gazing up the road.
“I would be so glad if—one day—so flattered if—you would—will—um—come
for a walk, one day.” He stopped with a jerk.
She moved through the gate and looked back at him before turning up the
path to the house.
“Why, of course, Mr. Perrin, I shall be delighted. Good night.”
He stood looking after her.
CHAPTER V—A GAME OF FOOTBALL AND A DANCE IN PENDRAGON HAVE THEIR PART IN
THE SCHEME OF THINGS I.
LATER there is Mr. Perrin heavily—with the midday mutton close about his
head—surveying, in his dingy and tattered sitting-room, four small boys
who gaze at him with staring eyes and jumping throats.
It is a piece of English poetry that has brought them, miserably, by the
ears—Browning's “Patriot,” one verse a week, to be said every Tuesday
morning first hour, and to be forgotten eagerly, completely forgotten,
every Tuesday morning second hour.
I go in the rain and, more than needs
The rope—the rope—the rope—
Johnson Minor gazed miserably at his companions and, finding no help in
man, but only a jesting glory at his misfortunes, dizzily, despairingly,
to the top row of Mr. Perrin's bookcase, where Advanced Algebra and
Mensuration hold perpetual war and rivalry.
It was a desperate affair altogether, because it was the afternoon of a
football match—a great football match against a mighty Truro team,—and
already the gathering multitude in the field below flung a derisive
murmur at the dusty panes.
But Mr. Perrin was motionless. He offered no assistance, he suggested
no remedy, he merely tapped with his bone paper-knife on the red
tablecloth—a tap that showed Johnson Minor once and for all that his
case was hopeless:
A rope—a rope that—
Johnson Minor, with hanging head and red eyes, passed out to write it,
the whole poem, fifty times before lock-up. He would miss the match.
Outside, in the passage, he suddenly remembered the whole verse clearly,
perfectly; but it was too late.
At last one prisoner only remained—Garden Minimus, a cheerful, untidy
person aged ten, in enormous boots and no kind of parting to his hair.
Garden Minimus was the boy whom Perrin liked best in the whole
school—had liked him best for the last two years. When things were
really black, when headaches were violent, and when unpopularity seemed
to hang about him in a dense, thick cloud, there was always Garden
Minimus. He flattered himself that the boy was not aware of this
partiality; but the boy, he was sure, liked him. He treated him always
with an elaborate irony that the boy seemed to understand in some
curious way. Garden would stand, with his head on one side like a rather
intelligent small dog, and although he rarely said anything more than
“Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” Perrin felt that he grasped the situation.
On this afternoon it was plain that Garden Minimus did not know a word
of “The Patriot,” and had made no attempt whatever to learn it.
Mr. Perrin looked at him with a slow smile. “I'm afraid, friend Garden,”
he said, “that it will devolve upon your lordship—hum—ha—that you should
write this poem of the noble Mr. Robert Browning's no less than fifty
times. I grieve—I sympathize—I am your humble servant; but the law
commands.”
Garden Minimus brushed Mr. Perrin's fine periods aside, and said, with
a most engaging smile, “There's a most ripping footer match this
afternoon, sir.”
“Fool though I am,” said Mr. Perrin, “I have nevertheless observed that
there is, as you say, a footer match. Nevertheless, I am afraid 'The
Patriot' calls you, friend Garden.”
“It would be an awful pity,” said Garden reflectively, without paying
the slightest attention to Mr. Perrin, “to miss a decent game like
that.”
Suddenly Mr. Perrin was irritated. He snapped out sharply, “All right,
Garden; that will do. You 'll get it a hundred times if you aren't
careful!”
Garden, realizing his defeat, moved slowly out of the room, his forehead
lowering. Outside the door he muttered, “Silly, pompous ass!”
Mr. Perrin remained discontented, unhappy. He was continually attempting
to make the boys fond of him and at the same time to retain his dignity.
He never succeeded in this, because so definite an attempt on his part
immediately precluded any capitulation on theirs. They thought he was a
fool to try, and they resented his airs.
He was really fond of Garden Minimus, he thought, as he sat with his
head between his arms in his dingy, dusty room. The dust wove patterns
above his head in the pale, dim sunlight. He must go down and watch the
football. He must get out amongst people, because he had a sickening
fear that for the first time that term his headaches were coming back to
him. He had avoided them. Miss Desart had been there instead, and every
time that she spoke to him he had felt well and happy.
She had spoken to him a good many times lately, and he now was sure that
she was attracted to him. Soon he would ask her to go with him for
a walk... then there would be more walks... then.... He wrote to his
mother that the thing was practically arranged.
As for that puppy, Traill—well, he 'd kept him in his place, thank
Heaven. As the days increased, Perrin had grown to dislike him more
and more—conceited, insufferable, giving himself such airs. When he met
anyone who gave himself airs, Perrin had a curious habit of referring
things back to his old mother and seeing her insulted. He could see the
patronizing way that Traill would speak to her. This always made him
furiously angry when he thought of it. But being furiously angry only
brought on his headaches again. Oh! there were things to be done! He
looked around his room and saw a pile of mathematical papers, some
English essays. His eye crossed to the mantelpiece, and he saw there a
silly china figure, painted in red and yellow, of an old gentleman in a
cocked hat. This, for no reason that he could explain, always irritated
him. The old gentleman had so confident and knowing a smile. He had
always meant to get rid of it, but for some reason or other he never
could destroy it.
Oh! he must get out into the air! His head was very had.
As he left his room, there was a vague fear, somewhere, at his heart.
The game had begun. The ropes on either side were thickly lined with a
dark crowd of boys, and a long wailing shout, “Scho-o-l!” rose and
fell without ceasing. Perrin, in his shabby greatcoat, watched with a
superior but interested air. There was nothing in the world that excited
him more, but he had never been able to play himself and so he affected
to despise it.
In front of him, pressed against the rope, were three small boys of
his own house, each boy holding a paper bag from which he drew fat and
sticky green and brown sweets. They had not noticed him. They divided
their attention between their neighbors, their sweets, and the game.
“Shut up, Huggins, you silly fool! What are you shoving for?”
“Can't help it—Grey's barging—Oh! I say, run it, Morton. That's it! Pick
it up—dodge him, man! Oh, hang it!”
“I say, swop one of those brown things for one of mine—Thanks! Where's
Garden, you chaps?”
“Swotting up for Old Pompous.”
“Oh! what rot! I'm blowed if I would. I thought Pompous was rather sweet
on Garden.”
“So he is—but Garden can't stand him.”
“No wonder—blithering ass, with his long words!”
“Oh! I say—they 've got it! There's Morton off again—Oh! he's going!
Well run, my word! He's in! No, he isn't! The back's got him! No, he
hasn't! Hurray! Try! Good old Morton!”
Amongst the commotion that followed the happy event Perrin moved to a
less crowded portion of the people. He was accustomed to hearing himself
spoken of with but little respect by those who, when he was present,
trembled before him. He always told himself that all the members of the
staff were in the same box; but this afternoon it hurt—it hurt badly.
Little beasts! He'd punish them! As he moved along behind the ranks of
boys—each boy with his friend—the familiar mantle of loneliness, that he
had known so long, swept him in its somber folds. He saw Comber in the
distance, turned to avoid him, and suddenly confronted Mrs. Comber and
Miss Desart.
He pulled himself up with a sudden effort of one who, feeling at his
very worst, has immediately to appear at his very best, and the struggle
was glaring to the observer, in the nervous clutching of the buttons of
his coat and his uneasy, agitated laugh.
Mrs. Comber was always at her noisiest and most affable with Mr. Perrin,
because she didn't like him, and she always tried to cover that dislike
with an increased amiability. Isabel stood rather gravely by and watched
the game.
“We appear to be winning,” said Perrin, glaring as he spoke at three
small hoys who had looked up at the sound of his voice. “We appear—um—to
be winning. Morton has secured a try.”
“Yes, I'm so glad,” gasped Mrs. Comber—she was out of breath. “Morton's
a nice boy—we had him once in our house, and I do hope the school will
win, because it's so nice for everybody's tempers, and the boys like
it—and there's that nice Mr. Traill playing and running about most
beautifully.”
Perrin started. He hadn't noticed that Traill was playing. He looked
at Isabel and saw that she was watching the game with deep attention.
Traill was certainly in his element. The ball came suddenly in his
direction. He had it in his hands and was off with it. There was a
breathless, hushed pause; then, as he sped along, just inside the
touch-line, swerved past his opposing three-quarter to the center of the
field, and flew for the goal, the silence broke into a roar. Miss Desart
gave a long-drawn “Oh!” Mrs. Comber a little scream, Mr. Perrin moodily
stroked his mustache.
The back was outwitted, and came floundering to the ground—a very pretty
try.
“Good old Traillers!”
“That's something like!”
“Isn't he spiffing?”—and then Miss Desart's, “Oh! that was splendid!”
beat about Mr. Perrin's poor head, that was aching horribly.
“That nice Mr. Traill! I do like to see people run like that. Oh! it's
half-time.”
Mrs. Comber caught Mr. Perrin slowly into her vision again and prepared
once more to be volubly pleasant.
But Mr. Perrin had had enough. On the opposite side of the field, on the
top of the hill against the china white of the autumn sky, were three
trees, gnarled, bent, gaunt, like three old men. Quite alone they
stood and watched, impersonally and gravely, the game. Mr. Perrin felt
suddenly as though he, too, were really one of them. Behind them sheets
of white light, falling from the hidden sun, flooded the long, brown
fields.
Cold pale blue was reflected against the gray stodgy clouds. Mr. Perrin
went back slowly to his room. The dusty untidiness of it closed
about him. He sat down to his pile of English essays on “Town and
Country—Which is the best to live in?” with a confused sense of running
men, lights across the hills, the china red and black man on the
mantelpiece, and Miss Desart's shining eyes.
At five o'clock, with a heavy scowl, Garden Minimus presented “The
Patriot” neatly written fifty times. II.
It was about this time that Archie Traill accepted an invitation to a
dance at Sir Henry Trojan's. It was to be only a small dance, and it was
to be over by twelve. “Do let us,” Lady Trojan wrote, “put you up. You
will be able to see more of Robin, who is coming down for the night from
London. He will want to see you so badly.” Traill wrote back, accepting
the dance, but explaining that he must return on the same evening,
quoting as his imperative necessity early morning preparation.
It was Clinton's evening on duty, and therefore there was no very
obvious necessity to say anything more about it; but Traill, in order
to free himself from any further danger, thought that he would go and
receive definite permission from Moy-Thompson. He had not as yet been to
a single dinner or evening party outside the school, and he had noticed
that the rest of the staff never went out at all, nor had apparently
any intention of doing so. He went round at twelve o'clock after morning
school to Moy-Thompson's study, knocked on the door, and entered. He was
conscious at once of trouble in the air. He saw that White, the nervous
man who took the Classical Fifth, was standing by Thompson's table. He
moved back as though he would leave the room; but the headmaster called
to him, “Ah! Traill, don't go. I shall be ready in a moment.”
Then Traill noticed several things. He noticed, first, that
Moy-Thompson's garden beyond the window was colored a brilliant brown in
the sun; he noticed that Moy-Thompson's study was dark and black, like
a prison; he noticed that White's long hatchet-face was yellow in the
half-light; he noticed that both White's hands, hanging straight at
his side, were tightly clenched, and that his thin legs, spread widely
apart, were drawn tight beneath his trousers so that the cloth flapped a
little against his thin calves; he noticed that Moy-Thompson's long gray
beard swept the table and that his fingers tapped the wood every now
and again with the sound of peas rattling on a plate; he noticed that
Moy-Thompson was smiling.
Moy-Thompson said, “But I think I told you that Maurice was on no
account to have an exeat.”
White's voice came from a far, hesitating distance: “Yes, I know. But
his father was only to be in London for an hour, and he has not seen his
son for a year, and I thought that under the circumstances—”
“That does not alter the fact that I had expressed a wish that he should
not have an exeat.”
“No—but I thought that if you knew all the circumstances of the case,
you would not object.”
“What is your position here? Are you here to consider my wishes? What
are you paid to do?”
White made no answer.
“Of course if you are dissatisfied with the condition of things here,
you have only to say so. It would be doubtless possible to fill your
place.”
“No,”—White's voice was very low—“I have no complaint. I am sorry if—”
“You must remember your position here. I have yet to discover any paid
position that enables you to indulge your own particular fancies when
you please. Doubtless you are better informed.”
Traill could endure it no longer. He was so angry that the blood had
rushed to his head, and his face was scarlet. White had flung one glance
at him, as though to beseech him to go away, and he moved to the door;
but again Moy-Thompson said, “Just a moment, Traill.”
He was so angry that, on the impulse of the moment, he had almost
stepped across the room and flung in his resignation. White's long
haggard figure was torture; it was cruelty, devilish cruelty, laughing
with them there in the room.
The man at the table was playing with them as a cat does with a mouse,
shaming one of them before the younger man, as though he had stripped
him naked and driven him so into the playing-fields outside, forcing the
other to listen, brutally, intolerably, against his will.
The room seemed full of pain—it seemed to cross and recross in waves.
White's head bent down.... At last he passed with lowered eyes out
through the door.
Traill could not speak; without another word, he turned and followed
him. Outside the door in the darkened passage he suddenly held out his
hand and caught White's. White held his for an instant; suddenly, with a
frightened, startled look, he stepped away. III.
When the evening of the dance arrived, Traill noticed that he was glad
to get away. Term had now lasted for six weeks, and in another week it
would be half-term. He was a little tired; he found it more difficult
to get up in the morning. Little things mattered a great deal—he now
emphatically disliked Perrin more than he had ever disliked anyone in
his life before; there was even annoyance in the mere sight of his long,
lean, untidy figure, in the sound of his assured, supercilious voice, in
the sense of his arrogance.
They never spoke to each other if they could help it; meals were
extremely disagreeable.
He found, too, that love did not mingle properly with school work. He
was always going into day-dreams when he should have been teaching his
form. He tried to keep the sea and the wood and the funny man that he
had met there and Isabel apart from his work; but they came skipping
in—and at night he dreamt—he was almost sure that she loved him....
Whenever they met now they were very silent.
He escaped whilst they were all in chapel. He lit his bicycle-lamp,
wrapped a long, thin coat about him, and escaped. It had been a cold,
fine day. The sun was just setting over the sea as he spun down the
hard, white road.
As he flew between the dark, sweet-scented hedges, as he felt the wind
in his ears and about his face, as the smell, salt and sharp, of the sea
came to him, it was strange to find how the cares and troubles of those
brown buildings on the hill fled away from him. He was already his old
self; he sang to himself.
A faint red glow hovered over the dark, heaving water; the trees stood
black on the horizon, and the long, low lines of shadow, white and gray,
stole about the road as the evening sky slowly settled, with a little
sighing of the wind, into the colors that it would bear during the
night. The lights of the little village behind him made a red cluster
against the dark shoulder of the Brown Hill.
He sang aloud.
It was a most enjoyable dance; he had never enjoyed a dance so much
before. He realized that he, was looking on the past six weeks as
imprisonment; he also noticed that when he told his partners that he
was a schoolmaster they stared at him a little apprehensively. It was
delightful to see Robin Trojan again. They walked into the garden
and strolled about the paths together; he was much improved since
the Cambridge days, Traill thought—less self-assured and with wider
interests. And then Sir Henry Trojan always gave Traill a broader
feeling of life—sanity and health and strength—and lie had an admirable
sense of humor.
And then it was over, and Traill was speeding back over the hill again.
He thought of Isabel all the way back. He fancied that she was with him
in the dark. The night was so black that he could only see the little
round white circle that his lamp flung on the road in front of him. The
hedges, like black, bulging pillows, closed him in.
He seemed to be back in no time. He heard the school clock strike one.
He took the Yale key and fitted it into the door; it would not move; he
tugged, pulled it out, forced it in again, and pushed it. With a click
it broke in half.
He looked at the big, black, silent buildings in despair—supposing he
had to stay out all night. He would die rather than ring.
He went round to the other side of the building and looked up. Then he
saw that the dining-room windows were not very high and that he might
climb. He caught on to a buttress and pulled himself up; then another
hand on the window-sill drew him level.
He found to his delight that the window was not latched. He pushed it
up, and then, with one hasty look into the dark cavern beneath him,
jumped. He was saluted on his descent with a noise as though all the
crockery in the world had fallen about his ears. The sharp collapse of
it seemed to go rushing through the silent house for hours; he knew that
he had cut his hand and had bruised his knee.
For a moment he was stunned; then slowly he realized what he had done:
the tables were laid for the next morning's breakfast, and he had jumped
down straight amongst the cups and plates.
He sat up on the floor and began, with his head aching, to staunch the
blood that came from the cut. He saw, as in a dream, the door open.
Someone was standing there, in a nightshirt, holding a candle; it was
Perrin.
“Who's there? What's that?” Perrin held a poker in his other hand.
Traill got up slowly from the floor. “It is I—Traill,” he stammered. He
was still feeling stunned.
Perrin held the candle a little closer. “Oh, is it you, Traill?”
“Yes, I have been out. I fell on to the plates and things. I am sorry.”
“You made a great noise.” Perrin was speaking very slowly. “You woke me
up.”
“Yes; I am most awfully sorry.”
Traill moved towards the door. Perrin still stood there, holding his
candle, his nightshirt flapping about his legs. He did not seem inclined
to move.
“You made a great noise. It is one o'clock.” He said it as though he
were Robespierre condemning Louis XVI to execution.
“Yes, I know. I'm dreadfully sorry. I broke my key.”
Still Perrin did not move. “What are you doing out so late?” he said at
last, slowly.
What the devil had it to do with Perrin!
“I did n't know that this was a girls' school,” Traill said at last,
sarcastically. His head was aching, his knee hurt, he was tired, and in
a very bad temper.
Perrin moved from the door. “It's struck one—coming in like this!”
The candle flung a most ridiculous shadow of him on the wall—a huge,
gigantic head with hair sticking out of it like spears.
Because he was tired and rather hysterical, this suddenly amused Traill
enormously. He hurst into a peal of laughter.
“I can't help it,” he said, shaking; “you look so funny, so frightfully
odd!”
Perrin said nothing. He looked at him for a moment. He had been
disturbed in his sleep; he had every reason to be very angry. But he
said nothing at all. He moved slowly down the passage.
Traill followed him in silence; he was suddenly frightened.