BUT, during the week that followed, Traill's good-temper slowly
reasserted itself once more. After all, it was really impossible to
be angry with anyone when the world was alight and trembling with
so wonderful an adventure. They had each of them written to those in
authority. Isabel had a complacent father who knew something of young
Traill's family and, answering at once, said that he would come down
to see them and made it his only stipulation that the engagement should
last for at least a year, until they were both a little older. Traill's
mother was delighted with anything that could give her son such
happiness. It had all been very sudden of course; but then, was not true
love always like that? Had not she, a great many years ago, fallen
in love with Archie's father “all in a minute,” and was not that the
beautiful incautious way that the new practical generation seemed so
often to forget? So, she sent him her blessing and also wrote a little
note to Isabel.
But they still kept their secret from the others. They meant every day
to reveal it, but they shrank, as each morning came, from all the talk
and chatter that would at once follow. It would mean an end, Isabel
knew, to any easy and pleasant relations that she might have with anyone
at the school. She never understood the reason, but she knew that they
would feel that she had acted in a conceited, presuming manner. It would
not be pleasant.
So their meetings were, during these days, few and difficult. They
met in the wood and at the sea, and their eyes crossed over the chapel
floor, and they even wrote to one another and posted them elaborately in
the letter-box.
But on any morning the secret might be revealed. Traill told Isabel
about his quarrel with Perrin, and she urged him to make it up.
“When we ourselves are so happy,” she said, “we can't quarrel with
anyone—and, poor man, no wonder his temper is irritable. He's a
miserably disappointed man, and I don't think he's very well either. He
looks dreadfully white and strained sometimes. We can afford to put up
with some ill-temper from other people, Archie, just now. When we are so
happy and he is so unhappy, it is a little unfair, isn't it?”
And so he kissed her and went back resolved to be pleasant and
agreeable. But Perrin gave him no opportunity. They spoke to each other
a little at meals for appearance' sake, but any advances that Traill
made were cut short at once without hesitation.
Perrin passed about the passages and the class-rooms during this week
heavily, with a white face and a lowering brow—he had headaches, bad
headaches; and his form suffered. II.
And so it was suddenly, without warning or preparation, that the storm
broke—the storm that was to be remembered for years afterwards at
Moffatt's: the great Battle of the Umbrella, about which strange myths
grew up, that will become, doubtless, in later centuries at Moffatt's a
strange Titanic contest, with gods for its warriors and thunderbolts
for their weapons; the great battle that involved not only the central
combatants, not only Traill and Perrin and their lives and fortunes, but
also others—the Combers, the matrons, the masters, the whole world
of that place seized by the Furies... and, in the corner, in that
umbrella-stand by the hall door, underneath the stairs, that faded
green umbrella—now, we suppose, passed into that limbo into which all
umbrellas must eventually go, but then the gage, the glove, the sign
token of all that was to come.
Let, moreover, no one imagine that these things are not possible. This
Battle of the Umbrella stands for more, for far more, than its immediate
contest. Here is the whole protest and appeal of all those crowded,
stifled souls buried of their own original free-will beneath fantastic
piles of scribbled paper, cursing their fate, but unable to escape from
it, seeing their old age as a broken, hurried scrambling to a no-man's
grave, with no dignity nor suavity, with no temper nor discipline, with
nerves jangling like the broken wires of a shattered harp—so that there
is no comfort or hope in the future, nothing but disappointment and
insult in the past, and the dry, bitter knowledge of failure in the
present—this is the Battle of the Umbrella.
It was Monday morning, and Monday morning is worse than any other day of
the week.
There has been, in spite of many services and the reiteration of
religious stories concerning which a shower of inconvenient questions
are flung at the uncertain convictions of authority, a relief in the
rest and repose of the preceding day.
Sunday was, at any rate, a day to look forward to in that it was
different from the other six days of the week, and although it might not
on its arrival show quite so pleasant a face as earlier hours had given
it, nevertheless it was something—a landmark if nothing else.
And now on this dark and dreary Monday—with the first hour a tedious and
bickering discussion on Divinity, and the second hour a universal and
embittered Latin exercise—that early rising to the cold summoning of the
hell was anything but pleasant.
Moreover, on this especial Monday the rain came thundering in furious
torrents, and the row of trees opposite the Lower School wailed and
cried with their dripping, naked boughs, and all the brown leaves on the
paths were beaten and flattened into a miserable and hopeless pulp.
Monday was the only morning in the week on which Traill took early
preparation at the Upper School, and he had noticed before that it
nearly always rained on Mondays. He was in no very bright temper as he
hurried down the cold stone passages, pulling on his gown and avoiding
the bodies of numerous small boys who flung themselves against him as
they rushed furiously downstairs in order to be in time for call-over.
He heard the rain beating against the window-panes and hurriedly
selected the first umbrella that he saw in the stand and rushed to the
Upper School.
That preparation hour was unpleasant. M. Pons, the French master, was
in the room above him, and the ceiling shook with the delighted stamp of
twenty boys blessed with a sense of humor and an opportunity of power.
M. Pons could be figured with shaking hands in the middle of the room,
appealing for quiet. And, as was ever the case, the spirit of rebellion
passed down through the ceiling to the room beneath. Traill had his boys
well under control; but whereas on ordinary occasions it was all done
without effort and worked of its own accord, on this morning continual
persistence was necessary, and he had to make examples of various
offenders.
A preparation hour always invited the Seven Devils to dance across the
two hundred of open books, and the tweaking of boys' bodies and the
digging of pins into unsuspecting legs was the inevitable result. Traill
rose at the end of the hour, cross, irritable, and already tired. He
hurried down to the Lower School to breakfast and forgot the umbrella.
The rain was driving furiously against the window-panes of the Junior
common room. The windows were tightly closed, and still the presence of
yesterday's mutton was felt heavily, gloomily, about the ceiling. The
brown and black oilcloth contained numberless little winds and draughts
that leapt out from under it and crept here and there about the room.
A small fire was burning in the grate—a mountain of black coal and stray
spirals of gray smoke, and little white edges of unburnt paper hanging
from the black bars. Beyond the side door voices quarreling in the
kitchen could be heard, and beyond the other door a hum of voices and a
clatter of cups.
It was all so dingy that it struck even the heavy brain of Clinton, who
was down first. Perrin was taking breakfast in the big dining-room, and
Traill was not yet hack from the Upper School.
Clinton seized the Morning Post and, with a grunt of dissatisfaction
at the general appearance of things, sat down. He never thought very
intently about anything, but, in a vague way, he did dislike Monday and
rain and a smoking fire. He helped himself to more than his share of
the breakfast, ate it in large, noisy mouthfuls, found the Morning Post
dull, and relapsed on to the Daily Mail. The rain and the quarreling in
the kitchen were very disturbing.
Then Traill came in and sat down with an air of relief. He had no very
great opinion of Clinton, but they got on together quite agreeably,
and he found that it was rather pleasanter to have an entirely negative
person with one—it was not necessary to think about him.
“My word,” said Clinton, his eyes glued to the Daily Mail, “the London
Scottish fairly wiped the floor with the Harlequins yesterday—two goals
and a try to a try—all that man Binton—extraordinary three-quarter—no
flies on him! Have some sausages? Not bad. I wonder if they 'll catch
that chap Deakin?”
“Deakin?” said Traill rather drearily, looking up from his breakfast.
How dismal it all was this morning! Oh, well—in a year's time!
“Yes, you know—the Hollins Road murder—the man who cut his wife and
mother into little bits and mixed them up so that they couldn't tell
which was which. There's a photograph of him here and his front door.”
“I think,” said Traill, shortly, “following up murder trials like that
is perfectly beastly. It isn't civilized.”
“All right!” said Clinton, helping himself to the remaining sausages.
“Perrin's having breakfast in there, isn't he? He won't want any more.”
“He sometimes does,” said Traill, feeling that at the moment he hated
Clinton's good-natured face more than anything in the whole world. “He's
awfully sick if he comes in hungry and doesn't find anything.”
Clinton smiled. “He's rather amusing when he's sick,” he said. “He so
often is. By the way, has the Head passed those exam, questions of yours
yet?”
“No,” said Traill, frowning. “He 's made me do them five times now, and
last time he crossed but a whole lot of questions that he himself had
suggested the time before. I pointed that out to him, and he called me,
politely and gently, but firmly, a liar. There's no question that he's
got his knife into me now, and I've got friend Perrin to thank for it!”
“Yes,” said Clinton, helping himself to marmalade, “Perrin does n't love
you—there's no question of that. Young Garden Minimus has been helping
the feud.”
“Garden? What's he got to do with it?”
“Well, you know that he was always Old Pompous' especial pet—well,
Pompous has riled him, kept him in or something, so now he goes about
telling everybody that he's transferred his allegiance to you. That
makes Pompous sick as anything.”
“I like the kid especially,” Traill said. “He 's rather a favorite of
mine.”
“Yes,” said Clinton. “Well, look out for trouble, that 's all. There 'll
be open war between you soon if you are not careful.”
At that moment Perrin came in. He was continuing, as he entered, a
conversation with some small boy whose head just appeared at the door
for a moment and revealed Garden Minimus.
“Well, a hundred times,” Perrin was saying, “and you don't go out till
you 've done it.”
Garden displayed annoyance, and was heard to mutter under his breath.
Perrin's face was gray; his hair appeared to be unbrushed, and there was
a good deal of white chalk on the back of his sleeve.
“Really, it's too bad,” he said to no one in particular and certainly
not to Traill. “I don't know what's come over that boy—nothing but
continuous impertinence. He shall go up to the Head if he isn't careful.
Such a nice boy, too, before this term.”
At this moment he saw that Traill was reading the Morning Post and
Clinton the Daily Mail. He looked as though he were going to say
something, then by a tremendous effort controlled himself. He stood
in front of the dismal fire and looked at the other two, at the dreary
window-panes and the driving rain, at the dusty pigeon-holes, the untidy
heap of books, the torn lists hanging from the wall.
He had slept badly—had lain awake for hours thinking of Miss Desart, of
his own miserable condition, of his poor mother—and then, slumbering
at last, in an instant he had been pulled, dragged wide-awake by that
thundering, clamoring bell.
He had been so tired that his eyes had refused to open, and he had sat
stupidly on the edge of his bed with his head swaying and nodding.
Then he had been late for preparation, and he knew that they had been
“playing about” and had rubbed Somerset-Walpole's head in the ink
and had stamped on his body, because, although it was so early,
Somerset-Walpole's eyes were already red, his back a horrible confusion
of dust and chalk, his hair and collar ink and disaster.
He was sorry for Somerset-Walpole, whose days were a perpetual tragedy;
but as there was no other obvious victim, he selected him for the
subject of his wrath, expatiated to the form on the necessity of getting
up clean in the morning, and sent the large, blubbering creature up
to the matron to be cleansed and scolded. Verily the delights of some
people's school days have been vastly exaggerated!
Then Garden Minimus had been discovered sticking nibs into the fleshy
portion of his neighbor, and, although he had vehemently denied the
crime, had been heavily punished and had therefore sulked during the
rest of the hour. At breakfast-time Perrin had called him up to him and
had hinted that if he chose to be agreeable once again the punishment
might be relaxed; but Garden did not please, and sulked and muttered
under his breath, and Perrin thought he had caught the word “Pompous.”
All these things may have been slight in themselves, but combined they
amounted to a great deal—and all before half-past eight in the morning.
Also he had had very little to eat.
He had been brought a small red tomato and a hard, rocky wedge of bacon
with little white eyes in it, and an iron determination to hold out at
all costs, whatever the consumer's appetite and determination. He smelt,
when he came into the common room, sausages, and he saw, with a glance
of the eye, that there were sausages no longer.
“I really think, Clinton,” he said, “that a little less appetite on your
part in the early morning would be better for everyone concerned.”
Clinton was always perfectly good-tempered, and all he said now was,
“All right, old chap—I always have an awful appetite in the morning. I
always had.”
Perrin drew himself to his full height and prepared to be dignified.
Clinton said, “I say, old man, you 've got chalk all over your sleeve.”
And Perrin, finding that it was indeed true, could say nothing and
feebly tried to brush it off with his hand.
Traill had not spoken since Perrin had come in. He disliked intensely
the atmosphere of restraint in the room. He had never before been
on such bad terms with anyone, and now at every turn there were
discomforts, difficulties, stiffnesses. At this moment he loathed the
term and the place and the people as he had never loathed any of them
before; he felt that he could not possibly last until the holidays.
Perrin was going to the Upper School for first hour. He was going to
teach Divinity, the lesson that he loathed most of all. He gathered his.
books up and his gown, and went out into the hall to find his umbrella.
The rain was falling more heavily than before, and lashed the panes as
though it had some personal grievance against them.
Robert, the general factotum—a long, pale man with a spotty face and a
wonderful capacity for dropping china—came in to collect the breakfast
things. He passed, clattering about the table. Traill was still deep in
the Morning Post.
Perrin came in with a clouded brow. “I can't find,” he said, “my
umbrella.”
The rain beat upon the frames, Robert clashed the plates together, but
there was no answer. Clinton's head was in his pigeonhole, looking for
papers.
“Robert, have you seen my umbrella?”
No, Robert had not seen any umbrella. He might have seen an umbrella
last week, somewhere upstairs, in Miss Madder's room—an umbrella with
lace, pink—Oh! of course, a parasol. There were three umbrellas in the
stand by the hall door. Perhaps one of those was the one. No? Mr. Perrin
had looked? Well, he didn't know of anywhere else. No—perhaps one of the
young gentlemen.... There was nothing at all to be got out of Robert.
“Clinton!” No answer. “Clinton!”
At last Clinton turned round.
“Clinton, have you seen my umbrella?”
“No, old man—why should I? Isn't it outside?”
It was getting late, the rain was pelting down, and Perrin was quite
determined that he would not under any circumstances use anyone else's
umbrella.
He went out again and looked in the hall. He was beginning to get very
angry. Was not this the last straw sent by the little gods to break his
humble back? That it should be raining, that he should be late, and that
there should be no umbrella! He stormed about the hall, he looked in
impossible places, he shook the three umbrellas that were there; he
began to mutter to himself—the little red and yellow china man was
creeping down the stairs. He was shaking all over, and his hands were
trembling like leaves.
He came into the common room again. “I can't think—” he said, with his
trembling hand to his forehead. “I know I had it yesterday—last night.
Clinton, you must have seen it.”
“No,” said Clinton in that abstract voice that is so profoundly
irritating because it shows that the speaker's thoughts are far away.
“No—I don't think I've seen it. What did I do with that Algebra? Oh!
there it is. My word! is n't it raining!”
The Upper School bell began, far in the distance, its raucous clanging.
Perrin was pacing up and down the room; every now and again he flung a
furtive glance at Traill. Traill had paid, hitherto, no attention to the
conversation. At last, hearing the Upper School bell, he looked up.
“What's the matter?” he said.
“Really, Robert,” said Perrin, turning round to the factotum, “you must
have seen it somewhere. It's absurd! I want to go out.”
“There are the other gentlemen's,” said Robert, looking a little
frightened of Perrin's twitching lips and white face.
It dawned upon Traill slowly that Perrin was looking for an umbrella.
Then on that it followed that possibly the umbrella that he had taken
that morning might be Perrin's umbrella.
Of course it must be Perrin's umbrella. It was just the sort of
umbrella, with its faded silk and stupid handle, that Perrin would be
likely to have. However, it was really very awkward—most awkward.
He stood up and stayed with a hand nervously fingering the Morning Post.
Perrin rushed once more into the hall and then came furiously back. “I
must have my umbrella,” he said, storming at Robert. “I want to go to
the Upper School.”
He had left the door a little open.
“I am very sorry,” Traill began; the paper crackling beneath his
fingers.
Perrin wheeled round and stared at him, his face very white.
“I'm very sorry,” said Traill again, “but I'm afraid I must have taken
it—my mistake. I wouldn't have taken it if I had dreamed—”
“You!” said Perrin in a hoarse whisper.
“Yes,” said Traill, “I'm afraid I took the first one I saw this morning.
I'm afraid it must have been yours, as yours is missing. I assure you—”
He was smiling a little—really it was all too absurd. His smile drove
Perrin into a trembling passion. He took a step forward.
“You dared to take my umbrella?” he said, “without asking? I never heard
such a piece of impertinence. But it's all of a piece—all of a piece!”
“But it's really too absurd,” Traill broke in. “As though a man mightn't
take another man's umbrella without all this disturbance. It's too
absurd.”
“Oh! is it?” said Perrin, his voice shaking. “That's all of a
piece—that's exactly like the rest of your behavior here. You come here
thinking that everything and everyone belongs to you. Oh, yes! we've all
got to bow down to everything that your Highness chooses to say. We must
give up everything to your Highness—our clothes, our possessions—you
conceited—insufferable puppy!”
These words were gasped out. Perrin was now entirely beside himself
with rage. He saw this man here before him as the originator of all his
misfortunes, all his evils. He had put the other masters against him, he
had put the boys against him, he had taken Garden away from him, he had
been against him at every turn.
All control, all discipline, everything had fled from Mr. Perrin. He did
not remember where he was, he did not remember that Robert was in the
room, he did not remember that the door was open and that the boys could
hear his shrill, excited voice. He only knew that here, in this smiling,
supercilious, conceited young man, was his enemy, the man who would rob
and ruin him.
“Really, this is too absurd,” said Traill, stepping back a little, and
conscious of the startled surprise on the face of Robert—he did not want
to have a scene before a servant. “I am exceedingly sorry that I took
your umbrella. I don't see that that gives you any reason to speak to me
like that. We can discuss the matter afterwards—not here.”
“Oh, yes!” screamed Perrin, moving still nearer his enemy. “Oh! of
course to you it is nothing—nothing at all—it is all of a piece with the
rest of your behavior. It you don't know how to behave like a gentleman,
it's time someone taught you. Gentlemen don't steal other people's
things. You can be put in prison for that sort of thing, you know.”
“I didn't steal your beastly umbrella,” said Traill, beginning in his
anger to forget the ludicrousness of the situation. “I don't want your
beastly things—keep them to yourself.”
“I say”—this from Clinton—“chuck it, you two. Don't make such a row
here—everyone can hear. Wait until later.”
But Perrin heard nothing. He had stepped up to Traill now and was
shaking his fist in Traill's face.
“It's beastly, is it?” he shouted. “I 'll give you something for saying
that—I 'll let you know.” And then, in a perfect scream, “Give me my
umbrella! Give me my umbrella!”
“I haven't got your rotten umbrella,” shouted Traill. “I left it
somewhere. I've lost it. I'm jolly glad. You can jolly well go and look
for it.”
And at this moment, as Clinton afterwards described it, “the scrap
began.” Perrin suddenly flung himself upon Traill and beat his face
with his fist. Traill clutched Perrin's arm and flung him back upon the
breakfast-table. Perrin's head struck the coffee-pot, and as he rose he
brought with him the tablecloth and all the things that Robert had left
upon the table. With a fearful crash of crockery, with the odors of
streaming coffee, with the cry of the terrified Robert, down everything
came. Afterwards there was a pause whilst Perrin and Traill swayed
together, then with another crash, they too came to the floor.
Clinton and Robert rushed forward. Two Upper School masters, Birkland
and Comber, surveyed the scene from the doorway. There was an instant's
absolute silence.
Then suddenly Traill and Perrin both rose from the floor. Traill's lip
was cut and bleeding—coffee was on Perrin's collar; their faces were
very white.
For a moment they looked at each other in absolute silence, then they
passed, without a spoken word, through the open door.
In such a way, and from such a cause, did this Battle of the Umbrella
have its beginning.
Let us credit the gods with interest sufficient, and we see that it had
been their pleasant amusement to beguile those tedious Olympian hours
with a game; and to the onlooker, here is comedy enough, for about what
simpler can mortals dispute than this green umbrella? But for others,
more nearly concerned, there is some question of tragedy involved.