SKIRMISHING I.
ISABEL DESART heard about it early on the afternoon of the same day.
Traill himself told her as he stood with her for a moment outside the
school gates before he went down to football.
She saw it at once more seriously than he did; his attitude had been
that it was a pity, above all that it was indecorous, that he had, in a
way, made a fool of himself—that to struggle in that fashion with a man
like Perrin before an audience was a pity. But to her it was a great
deal more than this. In many ways she was older than Archie Traill, and
her feminine intuition helped her now; she saw Perrin as something to
be feared and also something to be pitied, and she did not know which of
these feelings was the stronger. She had always seen Perrin as someone
to be pitied—that was the reason of her kindness to him—and now that he
was ludicrous, now that his climax had made him prominent, her pity for
him was increased.
But she was also afraid. She guessed suddenly a great deal more than
she could actually see; she felt the miserable years that he had been
through, she felt his hatred of his own position, and she knew that he
would not be likely to forgive the man who had brought all this to a
climax.
They were all at such terribly close quarters. It would be easy enough
to get away from that sort of incident if they all of them were, as she
put it to herself, “spread out”; but halfterm was only just over and she
did not know what the next six weeks might bring. Traill's feeling, she
saw, was mainly one of disgust—the same kind of sensation that he would
have had if he had not been able to have his bath in the morning.
About Perrin he only felt contempt, a man who could make that kind of
disturbance about so small a thing....
Traill's final opinion, in fact, about it all was that “it wasn't done”
and that Perrin was therefore an “outsider,” and that there the thing
ended.
Isabel, in the few words that he had time to say to her, saw all this
and knew that his attitude would not make the whole affair any easier.
But she was wise enough to leave it all where it was for the moment and
simply to tell him that she was sorry.
“One thing, you know,” she said, smiling at him and blushing a little.
“We must let them all know about us, at once, to-day.”
“Oh! must we?” he said, shrinking back a little.
“Why, of course. You don't suppose there isn't going to be talk about
all this business. Of course, there is, heaps—and you must let me do my
share of standing up for you. I must have the right, you know.”
He had not figured the talk that there would be—he saw it all now in an
instant, that there would be sides and discussions, and, looking further
still, he had some idea of all the issues that were to be involved; but
he was much too simple a person to think this further vision anything
but fantastic: people simply didn't fight to that extent about
umbrellas....
He left her with a smiling consent to the announcement of their
engagement, and, for the moment, the thought of that swallowed all the
Perrin affair. He went down to his football cheerfully. II.
Meanwhile, in the Senior common room, during that interval between
chapel and dinner, things had occurred. The news of the morning
struggle had been brought, of course, by the eager witnesses, Comber and
Birkland, much earlier in the day; but the school day was a very busy
one—one hour followed another with terrible swiftness, and then there
were boys to see and games to play and all the accumulated details to
fill in any odd moments that there might be,—so that, with the exception
of short sentences and exclamations and a general air of pleasurable
surprise pervading everything, no real movement was possible until this
evening hour. The room, lighted by gas, was more ugly and naked than
ever—although it was close and stuffy, the spirit of it was cold and
chill.
Comber was in the chair of honor, the only arm-chair in the room;
Birkland and Pons, White and Dormer, and the little science master,
West, were also there. Little West was so obvious and striking an
example of his type that it seemed as though he had been especially
created to stand to the end of time as an example of what a Board School
education and a pushing disposition can do for a man. He was short
and square, with a shaggy, unkempt mustache and that sallow, unhealthy
complexion that two generations of ill-fed progenitors tend to produce.
He was a little bald on the top of his head, wore ready-made clothes,
and spoke slowly and with great care. He had worked exceedingly hard
all his youth and was the only master at Moffatt's whose ambitions were
unimpaired and his optimism (concerning his own future) unchecked. His
most striking feature were his hard, burning, little eyes, and it was
with these that he kept order in class.
He disliked all the other members of the staff, but he hated Birkland.
Birkland had, from the first, laughed at him; he had laughed at his
clothes, at his accent, at his pretensions to being a gentleman (to do
Birkland justice, if West had never pretended to be a gentleman at all,
he would have admired and liked him). In fact he made him his chief
and principal butt; and West, being slow of speech and (outside his own
subject) slow of brain, could never reply anything at all to Birkland's
sallies, and was left helpless and fuming.
Comber was reciting for the hundredth time what it was that he had seen.
The whole affair gave him very particular pleasure; he thought Traill
a conceited, insufferable young man, who had come in and taken the
football out of his hands and supplanted him completely—whenever he
thought of it he boiled over with rage; but he had never been able to
do anything, because Traill had never given himself away. He played
football a great deal better than Comber even in his palmiest days had
ever played it. Traill had given him no opportunity until now; but now
at last Comber glowed with the thought of the things that he would be
able to do. He intended it in no way maliciously—it was simply that the
younger generation should be taught its place; let Traill once submit to
Comber's rule in the football world and Comber would be pleasant enough.
Then Comber did not like Birkland's sharp tongue any more than the rest
of the staff did, and Birkland was a friend of Traill's. Of course, on
the other side, Comber did not like Perrin either. Perrin was a pompous,
pretentious fool, but in this case it was clearly Comber's duty to
uphold the senior staff.
He was leaning back in his arm-chair, with his chest out and one finger
impressively in the air. “There they were, you know, rolling—positively
rolling—on the floor. And all the breakfast things broken to bits and
the coffee streaming all over the floor—you never saw anything like it.
And then up they both got and looked at each other, and went out of the
room without a word, brushing past Birkland and me as though we weren't
there; didn't they, Birkland?”
Birkland was sitting in his chair with a sad, rather cynical, smile on
his face, as though he were saying, “This is their kind of life. Look
at Comber there, now—how pleased he is with things! Will be happy for
a month at least, and all their little private hates and jealousies are
being fed just as you feed the snakes at the Zoo. And am I not just as
bad as the rest? Am I not pleased, because it will give me a chance of
having a hit at the rest of them?... What a set we are!”
But he didn't say anything—he just sat there listening, with his
contemptuous smile, to Comber.
“An awful noise, you know, they made,” Comber went on. “And anything
funnier than Perrin when he got up you never saw, with his hair all
tousled and pulled about, and dust all over his back, and his cheek
bleeding where the coffee-pot had hit him. My word, it was funny!”
“At all events,” said Birkland dryly, “we ought all to be glad that you
got such amusement out of it, Comber. That's something to be thankful
for, at any rate.”
“Oh, it's all very well, Birkland,” Comber answered angrily; “you were
amused enough yourself, really—you know you were. In any case,” he went
on importantly, “the thing can't go on, you know. We can't have junior
masters flinging themselves at the throats of senior ones. That sort of
thing must be stopped.”
So it was at once apparent on whose side Comber was, and everyone
trimmed their sails accordingly. If one disliked Comber sufficiently and
was not afraid of him, one would, of course, for the moment, side with
Traill; and supposing one wished to get into Comber's good graces (no
easy thing to do), here would be an excellent opportunity. M. Pons, for
instance, thought so.
“It is—dégoûtant,” he cried, waving his hands in the air, “that a
young man, that is here one month, two months, should catch the throat
of his senior. These things,” he added with the air of one who waves
gloriously the flag of the Republic, “are not done in my country.”
“Well, when they are, perhaps you 'll be able to judge of them better,
Pons,” said Birkland. “Until then, I should recommend silence.”
M. Pons flushed angrily, but made no reply, and then looked appealingly
at Comber.
“Of course, Birkland,” said Comber, “if you are going to encourage that
sort of spirit in the staff, one has nothing to say. I daresay you would
like all the boys to be springing at one another's throats in the
same way; if that's what you want, well—“; and he waved his hands
expressively.
“It's absurd,” said Birkland quietly, “of Perrin to have made such a
fuss. As if a man mayn't borrow another man's umbrella without being
struck in the face. It's more than absurd, it's childish. It's just the
sort of thing that Perrin would do.”
“Very well,” said Comber; “let Perrin treat you in the way that Traill's
treated him, and you see what you'd say and do. All I know is that you
would n't stand it for a minute, you of all men, Birkland.”
“What do you mean by that?” Birkland said hotly.
“Oh, well, we all know you haven't got the sweetest of tempers, old
man,” Comber said laughing. “You can't lay claim to good temper whatever
else you may have.”
West laughed also and seemed to enjoy the joke immensely.
“Of course, you 're on the side of authority, West,” Birkland said. “You
naturally would be.” West was all the more annoyed because he didn't in
the least understand what Birkland meant.
The atmosphere began to get warm. But Comber despised West as an ally
and did not think very much of M. Pons, so he turned round to White.
White was sitting, as he always did, quietly in the background, without
saying anything. He was so quiet that people often forgot that he was
there at all. The effect of many years' bullying by Moy-Thompson was
to make him agree eagerly with the opinion of the last speaker, and
therefore Comber hadn't any doubt about the support that he would
receive. But White had never forgotten that handclasp that Traill had
given him, and now, to everyone's intense surprise, he said, “I think
Birkland's perfectly right. A man oughtn't to lose his temper because
another man's borrowed his umbrella. I think Traill's been very hardly
used—at any rate, we all know what Perrin must be to live with.”
Everyone was surprised, and Comber so astonished that for some time he
could find no words at all.
At last he broke out, “Well, all I can say is that you people don't know
what you 're in for; if you go on encouraging people like Traill to go
about stealing people's things—”
“Look here, Comber,” Birkland broke in. “You've no right to say
stealing. You may as well try and be fair. Traill never stole anything;
you'd better be more careful of your words.”
“Well, I call it stealing anyhow,” said Comber hotly. “You can call it
what you like, Birkland. I daresay you've got pet words of your own for
these things. But when a man takes something that is n't his and keeps
it—”
“He didn't keep it,” Birkland said angrily. “You 're grossly prejudiced,
just as you always are.”
“What about yourself?” West broke in. “People in glass houses—”
At this point the temperature of the room became very warm indeed.
Comber was pale with rage; he had never been so insulted before—not that
it very much mattered what a wretched creature like Birkland said.
He began to explain in a loud voice that some people weren't fit to be
in gentlemen's society, and that though, of course, he wouldn't like to
mention names, nevertheless, if certain persons thought about it long
enough, they would probably find that the cap fitted, and that if only
people could occasionally see themselves as others saw them—well, it
might be better for everyone concerned, and then perhaps there would
be a chance of their behaving decently in decent society, although of
course, if one's education had been neglected....
Meanwhile, M. Pons was explaining to West that whether you went in for
science or modern languages one's opinion of this sort of affair must be
the same, there was no question about it.
Birkland was sitting back, white and stiff in his chair and wishing
that he might take all their heads and crash them together in one big
debacle.
Then suddenly, when another two minutes might have been dangerous for
everyone concerned, the door was flung open, and Clinton entered. He was
excited, he was stirred; it was obvious that he had news.
“I say!” he cried, and then stopped. All eyes were upon him.
“What do you think?” he cried again, “Traill has just told me. He 's
engaged to Miss Desart.”
At that there was dead silence—for an instant nobody spoke. Then Comber
got up from his chair. “Well, I'm damned!” he said.
This was a new development; it is hard to say whether he saw at once
then the domestic complications into which it would lead him. Miss
Desart had stayed with them again and again; she was their intimate
friend. His wife was devoted to her and would, of course, at once
espouse her cause. But this piece of news made him, Comber, even
angrier than he had been before. His feeling about the engagement defied
analysis, but it rested in some curious, hidden way on some strange
streak of vanity in him. He had always cared very especially for Miss
Desart; he had given her, in his clumsy, heavy way, little attentions
and regards that he gave to very few people. He had always thought that
she had very great admiration and reverence for himself, and now she
had engaged herself without a word to him about it to someone whom he
disliked and disapproved of. He was hurt and displeased, he knew that
his wife would be delighted—more trouble at home. Here was White openly
insulting him in the common room; he was called names by Birkland; a
nice, pleasant girl had defied him (it had already come to that); his
wife would probably defy him also in an hour or two—with a muttered word
or two, he left the gathering.
For the others, this engagement was a piquant development that lent a
new color to everything. They had all noticed that Mr. Perrin cared for
Miss Desart, and now this sudden dramatic announcement was another knock
in the face for that poor, battered gentleman. Of course, she would
never have accepted him; but, nevertheless, it was rather hard that she
should be handed over to his hated rival.
“Does Perrin know?” was West's eager question.
“No,” said Clinton smiling, “I'm just going to tell him.” III.
Meanwhile, there is our Mr. Perrin sitting very drearily and alone in
front of his somber fire. As he sat there it was n't that he was so much
depressed by the morning's affair as that he was so frightened by
it—not frightened because of anything that Traill could do, or indeed
of anything that anyone could very especially say: he was long past the
terror of tongues—but rather afraid of himself and the way that he might
be going to behave.
He had long ago, when he was a very young man indeed, recognized that
there were two Mr. Perrins; indeed, in all probability, more than two.
He knew that when he had been quite a boy he had had ideas of being a
hero—a hero, of course, just as other young things meant to be heroes,
with a great deal of recognition and trumpets and bands and one's face
in the papers. He had, moreover, in those days, a stern and ready belief
in his own powers and judged, from a comparison of himself with other
boys, that he was really promising and had a future. He had heard some
preacher in a sermon—he went to sermons very often in those days—say
that every man had, once at any rate during his lifetime, his chance,
and that it was his own fault if he missed it; that very often people
did not know that it had ever come, because they had not been looking
out for it, and then they cursed Fate when it was really their own
fault—all this Perrin remembered, and he would lie awake at nights on
the watch for this chance—this splendid moment.
That was one Mr. Perrin; rather a fine one, with a great desire to do
the right thing, with a very great love for his mother, and with rather
a pathetic anxiety to have friends and affection and to do good.
Then there was the other Mr. Perrin—the ill-tempered, pompous,
sarcastic, bitter Mr. Perrin. When Perrin No. 1 was uppermost, he
recognized and deeply regretted Perrin No. 2; but when Perrin No. 2 was
in command, he saw nothing but a spiteful and malignant world trying, as
he phrased it, to “do him down.”
Now, as he sat sadly by his fire, he saw them both. That Mr. Perrin this
morning had, of course, been Perrin No. 2, and Perrin No. 2 very fierce
and strong and warlike. Perrin No. 1 was afraid. If this sort of thing
continued, then Perrin No. 1 would disappear altogether. This term had
been worse than ever, and he had begun it with so strong a determination
to make a good thing of it! This young Traill—and then Perrin No. 2
showed his head again, and the room grew dark and there was thunder in
the air. But, oh! if he could only have his chance! If he could only
prove the kind of man that he could be! If he could only get out of
this, away from it—if someone would take him away from it: he did not
feel strong enough, after all these years, to go away by himself. And
then, suddenly, he thought of Miss Desart. He saw her as his shining
light, his beacon. There was his salvation; he would make her love him
and care for him. He would show her the kind of man that he could be;
and then at the thought of it he began to smile, and a little color
crept into his pale cheeks, and he felt that if only that were possible,
he might be quite pleasant to Traill and the rest. Oh! they would matter
so little!
He nodded humorously to the little man on the mantelpiece and fell into
a delicious reverie. He forgot the quarrel of the morning, the insults
that he had received, all the talk that there would be, all the
opportunities that it would give to his enemies to say what they thought
about him. And then, perhaps, with her by his side, he might rise to
great things: he would have a little house, there would be children,
he would be his own master, life would be free, splendid, above all,
tranquil. He could make her so fond of him—he was sure that he could;
there were sides of him that no one had ever seen—even his mother did
not know all that was in him.
Perrin No. 1 filled the dingy room with his radiance. There was a knock
on the door. Clinton came in, a pipe in his mouth, a book in his hand.
“Oh! here's your Algebra that you lent me. I meant to have returned it
before.”
“Oh, thanks!” Perrin was always rather short with Clinton. “Won't you
sit down?”
“No thanks, I'm taking prep.” Nevertheless, Clinton lingered a little,
talking about nothing in particular; he stood by the mantelpiece,
fingering things—a practice that always annoyed Perrin intensely,—then
he took up the little china man and looked at him. “Rum chap that,”
he said. “Well, chin-chin—” He moved off; he stood for a moment by the
door. “Oh, I say!” he said, half turning round, his hand on the handle;
“have you heard the news? Traill's engaged to Miss Desart. He's just
told me.” He looked at Perrin for a moment, and then went out, banging
the door behind him.
Perrin did not move; his hands began to shake; then suddenly his head
fell between his shoulders, and his body heaved with sobs. He sat there
for a long time, then he began to pace his room; his steps were faster
and faster—he was like a wild animal in a cage.
Suddenly he stopped in front of the little china man. His face was
white, his eyes were large and staring; with a wild gesture he picked
the thing up and flung it to the ground, where it lay at his feet,
smashed into atoms....