WITH examinations there comes a new element into the life of the term—it
is an element of triumph in so far as it marks the approaching end of
an impossible situation; it is, an element of despair in so far as it
provides an overpowering number of answers, differing in the minutest
particulars, to the same questions; and is even an element of romance,
because it heralds the appearance of a final order in which boys will
beat other boys, generally in a surprising and unforeseen manner. But
whatever it means it also tightens to a higher pitch any situation that
there may have been before, so that anything that seemed impossible now
appears incredible; the days are like years, and the hours, filled with
the empty scratching of pens and the rubbing of blotting-paper, stretch
infinitely into the distance and hide release.
Their effect on everyone on the present occasion was to force
extravagantly the longing that everything might soon be over, that the
situation couldn't stand the kind of strain that was being put upon
it unless the curtain were rung down as soon as possible. Everyone was
hideously busy with long periods of doing nothing except the aforesaid
attention to pens and blotting-paper. Mr. Moy-Thompson had, moreover,
invented a little scheme which always provided, as far as he was
concerned, the pleasantest and most happy results. This was a plan
whereby every master set and corrected the papers of some other
master's form and then wrote a report on them. Here obviously was a most
admirable opportunity for the paying off of old scores, as a bad report
always led, next term, to a miserable period of bullying and baiting,
with the hapless master who had incurred it in the rôle of victim.
Therefore, if, as was usually the case, your especial enemy was
correcting the papers of your form and would write a report on them,
unless something were done to appease him, you were, during the whole of
the next term, delivered over mercilessly to the Rev. Moy-Thompson. You
might perchance appease your enemy, or you might yourself be examining
his form, in which case you had every opportunity of a pleasant retort.
At any rate, this plan invariably inflamed any hostilities that might
already be in existence and resulted in the provision of at least half a
dozen victims for Mr. Moy-Thompson's games on a later occasion.
For once, however, these examinations came to Perrin as very vague and
misty affairs. This was not usual with him. As a rule they pleased him,
because he could hold over hoys who had been rude to him during the term
the terror of being detained all the first day of the holidays—also he
considered that he was ingenious in the invention of pleasant Algebraic
conundrums and fascinating, derisive questions in Trigonometry that
prevented any possible solution. The devising of these gave him, as a
rule, pleasure and amusement, but this term he could not face them.
He set his papers, in an odd, abstracted way, with questions from
earlier papers, and then he sat with his hands folded in front of him
and waited. There was only one subject now in the whole world, and
all these curious boys, these strange, visionary class-rooms, these
appalling noises, and then these equally appalling silences, only
diverted his attention and prevented his thinking.
There were always three of them now—himself, the other Mr. Perrin,
and Traill—they always went about together. When he was taking an
examination and was sitting at his desk, isolated, by the wall, the
other Mr. Perrin, a gray, thin figure, was behind him, looking into the
room, and Traill stood, as he always did now, just inside the door, but
away from Mr. Perrin's eye, because when he turned round and looked at
him he always slipped, in the cleverest way, out of the door.
Perrin wondered that other people didn't notice that he was accompanied
by these persons, but probably they were all too occupied with their own
affairs. Of course Traill must be got rid of—one couldn't possibly have
anyone whom one hated as much as that always with one. Sometimes it was
curiously confused, because there were two Traills—a Traill who moved
about and spoke to people (although never to Perrin), and the Traill who
stood always by the door and never moved at all except to slip away.
Perrin was quite clear in his own mind now that he hated Traill very
much indeed, but he could not be very definitely sure of any reasons.
There had been something once about an umbrella, and there was something
else about Miss Desart, and there was even something about Garden
Minimus; but none of these things were fixed very resolutely in his
mind, and his thoughts slipped about like goldfish in a pond.
It was quite certain, however, that Traill must not be allowed to go
on like this, because he was a nuisance, and Perrin would sit for long
hours whilst he was superintending examinations thinking about this and
what he could do.
There were moments, even hours, when the consciousness of the two
figures at his side and the weighty burden of his decision left him. He
saw suddenly as clearly as he had ever seen, and he was frightened; it
was like waking from an evil dream, and just when he was gazing hack at
it, frightened, even terrified, it would come slipping about him again,
and the world would once more grow dark.
At last he was frightened at these intervals, because he seemed to
realize then how dismal and unhappy it all was, and also how dangerous
it was.
Once, during one of these clear moments, he was standing, a melancholy
figure, by the iron gate, looking down the Brown Hill road, and Garden
Minimus passed him. Perrin stopped him, and then when he saw the boy's
round face and shining eyes, a little frightened now, and the mouth
quivering a little, he had nothing to say.
At last he said, “Oh!—Ah!—Garden—I haven't seen much of you lately. How
do the exams go?”
Perrin had an absurd impulse to take the boy by the arm and ask him to
be kind to him. He was so dreadfully unhappy.
But Garden was very frightened; he choked a little in his throat, and
his eyes moved frantically down the white road as though appealing for
help.
“Oh! very well, sir, thank you, sir—I—I could n't do the geography this
morning, sir.”
There was a long pause. Garden gave frightened glances up and down the
road.
“When do you go for—um, ah,—your holidays, Garden?”
Garden looked up in Mr. Perrin's face, and suddenly, young though he
was, felt that Mr. Perrin was, as he put it afterwards, “awfully sick
about something—not ratty, you know, but jolly near blubbing.”
He had, with his friends, noticed that Perrin was “jolly odd” during
these days, but now this thought struck him to the extinction of every
other feeling. He had a sudden desire to help—after all, Old Pompous had
been beastly decent to him—and then there came an overwhelming sensation
of shyness, as though his feminine relations had suddenly appeared and
claimed him in the company of his contemporaries. He looked down, rubbed
one boot against the other, and then suddenly, with a murmured word
about “having to meet some fellows—beastly late,” was off.
Perrin watched him go and then turned slowly back towards the school
buildings. The shadows were creeping about him again. He felt that the
other Mr. Perrin was behind him. He walked stealthily, a little as a cat
prowls....
About this time he took great curiosity in Traill's bedroom. He had
never been inside it—he knew only that plain brown door with marks near
the bottom of it where the paint had been scratched.
But he sat now in his room and thought about it. He sat in a chair by
the windows and looked across the room at his own door, at the square
black lock and the shining brass handle. It was of course very easy
to turn, and then he would be inside. It would be interesting to be
inside—he would know then where the bed was, and the washing-stand, and
the chairs... it might be useful to know.
He went to his own door and opened it, and looked very cautiously down
the passage; there was no one there—it was all very silent. The sun of
the December afternoon flooded the cold passage, and from downstairs the
shouts of some boys floated up.... There were no other sounds.
He walked very softly down the passage, his head lowered, his hands
behind his back. He stopped outside Traill's bedroom door and listened
again—he was surprised to hear that his heart was beating very loudly
indeed. He pushed the door open and looked inside. The bed was near the
window—the sun flooded the room and shone on the silver hair-brushes and
the china basin and jug.
It was a very simple room, and the bed took up most of it; there was one
photograph.
He went very softly up to it and saw that it was a photograph of Miss
Desart—Miss Desart, smiling, out of doors with the sun on her dress.
He bent towards the photograph, over the china basin, and kissed it.
Then he went out, closing the door softly behind him. III.
And the week wore away, and Monday came round. Thursday was Speech-Day,
and on Friday everybody went home; all marks and form lists had to be in
the headmaster's room on Wednesday night before nine.
Perrin, on Monday evening, was vaguely conscious that he had corrected
no papers at all. They lay about his room now in stacks—none of them
were corrected. Some masters posted results as they corrected the
papers; other masters left all the results until the end. It was not
considered strange that Perrin had posted no results.
But he knew as he looked at these white sheets that he ought to have
done something with them. He stood in the middle of the room with his
hands to his head and wondered what he ought to have done. Why, of
course, he ought to correct them—he ought to say what was good and what
was bad.
He took up a large pile of them, and they almost slipped from his
fingers because there were so many. He found that it was a paper on
French Grammar. He looked at the slip with the questions.
“I. Give the preterite (singular only) and past participle of donner,
recevoir, laisser, s'asseoir...”
Ah! s'asseoir was a hard one—he had always found that that was
difficult. He turned over the page:
J'eu, tu eus, il eut—that looked wrong.. .
Again, here was Simpson Minor—“Je fus, tu fus, il fut”—surely that was
confused in some way.
The papers at the bottom slipped: he bent to prevent them falling, and
all of them tipped over. They rose in a cloud about him, a white cloud,
flying into the air, sailing to the other end of the room, diving under
the table and into the fireplace, and a great white pile lay-scattered
wildly on the floor.
The silly papers stared at him:
“Je dors tous...”
“Il faut que...”
“I used to love my mother, but now I love my aunt...”
“Rule for the conjunctive and disjunctive pronouns...”
And then, Simpson Minor: “Je fus, tu fus...”
He was infuriated with their silly, stupid faces. They lay there on the
floor, staring up at him and making no attempt whatever to move. He was
maddened by their impassivity. He began to stamp on them, and then to
trample on them—he rushed about the room, uttering little cries and
wildly stamping... .
And then something suddenly seemed to go in his brain, and he stopped
still. What was he doing? He bent feebly to pick them up, but he could
not collect them. He sat down at his table with his head in his hands.
Then he gave up trying to correct them. After all, they were not the
important thing—the important thing was between himself and Traill; that
was what he must think about.
This was Monday, and on Friday everyone would go away. He would go away,
he supposed, with the rest: of course he would go to his mother. Traill
would go away with Miss Desart... would he?
The other Mr. Perrin leant over and whispered in his ear.
It was from this moment that Mr. Perrin came to the definite decision
that something must be done before Friday. He made five black marks with
a pencil on the yellow wallpaper in his bedroom, and he would lie hack
on his bed at night, staring up at the marks whilst his candle guttered
on the chair at his side. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday... Monday passed, and he scratched another mark across the mark
that he had already made. Tuesday passed, and that he also scratched
out. Wednesday morning came.
Divinity was the only examination left except Repetition on Thursday
morning: Wednesday afternoon was a half-holiday.
He gave out the Old Testament questions:
“1. Say what you know about the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram;
its cause and effects.
“2. Write briefly a life of Aaron...”
He found that now suddenly his brain was perfectly clear. To-day was
Wednesday—before Friday he would kill Traill. The determination came to
him perfectly plainly in the midst of these questions:
“6. Give context of: 'Kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found
favor in thy sight.' “'Let us make a captain and let us return into
Egypt.'
“'Is the Lord's hand waxed short?'.rdquo;
He would kill Traill. He did not mind at all what happened to him
afterwards. What did it matter? Perhaps he would kill himself. He was
a complete failure; he had never been any use at all, and had only been
there for people to laugh at and mock him.
If it had not been for Traill he might have been of use—he might have
married Miss Desart. Traill had been against him in every way, and now
the only thing that was left for him to do was to kill Traill. He hated
Traill—of course he hated Traill; but it was not really because of that
that he was going to kill Traill—it was only because he wanted to show
all these people that he could do something: he was not useless, after
all. They might laugh at him and call him Pompous, but, after all, the
laugh would be on his side at the end.... Traill would not be able to
kiss Miss Desart very much longer—another day, and he would never be
able to kiss her again.... That was a pleasant thought.
Now that he had decided this question he felt a great deal happier and
easier in his mind. There was no longer any self-pity.
He had given God His opportunity—he had prayed to God and besought Him;
he had tried very hard at the beginning of this term to go right and to
be agreeable to people and to keep the other Mr. Perrin in the distance,
but everything had been very hard, and that was God's fault for making
it so hard.
He thought that he would surprise God by killing Traill. God would not
be expecting that.
Still more would he surprise the place—Moffatt's—that place that had
treated him so cruelly all these years. It would be a grand, big thing
to kill his enemy!
On that Wednesday, half an hour before the midday dinner, he walked
slowly, with his hands behind his bent back, through the long
dining-hall. The long, black tables were laid for dinner, and beside
every round, shining plate there lay two knives. These knives made a
long, glittering line right down the table, and the sun caught their
gleaming steel and flashed from knife to knife. The sight of them
fascinated Mr. Perrin—it was with a knife that he would kill Traill—he
would cut Traill's throat. He picked them up, one after the other, and
felt their edges—they were all wonderfully sharp. There were a great
many of them—you could cut a great many throats with all those knives,
but he did not want to cut anyone else's throat except Traill's—Traill
was his enemy.
At dinner that day he was pleasant and cheerful. He joked with the boys
on either side of him and asked where they were going for the holidays.
“Ah! Cromer—um—yes, very pleasant. Our little friend will amuse himself
hugely at Cromer, no doubt. Sure to over-eat on Christmas Day. Um,
yes—and you, Larkin, where do you go?... Ah! Whitby—long way. Yes, able
to read your holiday task in the train.”
He sent the servant out to sharpen the carving-knife, and when it was
brought back he attacked the mutton in the most furious way, scattering
the gravy over the cloth.
After dinner he stood above the playing-fields, watching the clouds sail
across the sky. It was a very gray-colored day, but there was the light
of the sun behind it, so that everything shone without color but with a
transparency as though one should be able to see other lights and colors
behind it.
Perrin thought that he had never seen the clouds assume such curious
shapes—perhaps they were not clouds at all, but rather creatures of the
sky that only his eye could see, just as it was only his eye that could
see the other Mr. Perrin. There were birds with long, bending necks, and
fat, round-faced animals with only one eye, and stiff, angular creatures
with wings and legs like sticks, and then again there were splendid
galleons with sails unfurled, and cathedral towers and trees and
mountain ranges—they were all very strange and beautiful, and perhaps
this was the last time that he would see them.
Then he saw, passing down the path to the right and walking fast in the
direction of the road, two figures; another glance, and he saw that they
were Miss Desart and Traill—there was no doubt at all that that was
Miss Desart in her gray dress, and that man with his swinging stick was
Traill.
The sight of them together suddenly roused him to fury; it would be
amusing to kill Traill now, there, before Miss Desart. He did not know
how he would do it, perhaps he would spring on to Traill's back from
behind and strangle him with his hands.
And so, with the other Mr. Perrin at his ear, he followed them down the
path.
It was a day of ghosts—even the brown color of the earth of the hill
that so seldom left it was gone to-day. It was not a cold day, and one
felt that the sun was burning with intense heat in some neighboring
place, but gray wisps of mist crept in and out of the black, naked
hedges, and, at the bottom of the hill, banks of mist lay, visiting the
cottages of the village.
The two figures passed in front of him down the hill and became, like
the rest of the day, gray and misty, and he followed them, stealthily,
with his hands behind his back. Their heads were very close together,
and he could see that they were talking very eagerly. They were
discussing, probably, their plans for the holidays, and it pleased him
to think that he would make all their plans of no avail. It pleased the
other Mr. Perrin also.
They passed down the village street and then up the steep, narrow path
to the road that led along the top of the cliffs. At the top of the path
the mists had cleared again, and the rocks, hidden at the floor of
the sea by gray vapor, stood as it were in mid-air, their black edges
piercing the sky. When Mr. Perrin climbed to the top of the path, the
other figures had preceded him some way along it and were almost hidden
by boulders. He hastened a little so that he might keep them in sight,
and then he hung back a little lest he should be too close to them. They
were still talking very eagerly and crossed down a stony path that led
to a sheltered cove. At the bottom of this they sat down on the sand,
and Perrin hid behind a rock and watched them.
The world was terribly still, because, although there was a wind that
made the clouds race along, it seemed to leave the sea alone, and the
water made the very faintest sound as it touched the beach and faded
away into the mist again.
Mr. Perrin found that his legs were very tired, and so he sat down
behind his stone and peered out at them. They sat very close together on
the sand, and then Traill put out his arm and Miss Desart crept into it
and sat there with her head against his shoulder. And when Perrin saw
that, he knew that he never could do anything to Traill whilst Miss
Desart was there. A dreadful feeling of home-sickness came over him, and
his eyes filled with tears. It was so unfair, so unfair. If only there
had been someone there to whom he could have done that: if only there
had ever been anyone in his life!... but he dashed the tears from his
eyes. He had not come there to cry—he had come there for vengeance, and
then, at that thought, he wondered whether after all he were not so poor
a creature that he would never be able to kill anyone. Supposing he
were to miss even this chance of achievement! There, behind his rock,
he tried to gather together all his reasons for hating Traill; but he
couldn't think properly, and the pebbles on which he was sitting were
pressing into his trousers, and his neck was hurting because he craned
it so.
At any rate he was very uncomfortable, and as he could certainly do
nothing whilst Miss Desart was there, he had better go away. And so he
got up very slowly and painfully from behind his rock and went timidly
up the path again. IV.
And that night, after going the round of the dormitories for the
last time, he went into his room and closed his door with the clear
determination of settling things up.
His head had not been so clear for weeks. He saw at once that he had
corrected no papers and that something must be done about that.
He sat down and, with the term's marks beside him, made out imaginary
examination lists. Of course it was all very wrong, but it was for the
last time, and he had, after all, put the boys in the order in which
they would probably; occur. This took him about an hour.
Then he took all the files of examination papers and tore them up. This
took a long time, and they filled, at last, his waste-paper basket to
overflowing. Then he sat down to write to his mother.
Dear Old Lady:
This is the last time that you will see or hear from me. Do not regret
it or anything that I have done, because I am no good, and am just a
failure. There is £100 in the bank which I have saved, and you will
get things with it. Sell my things: they will bring a little. I love you
very much, old lady, but I am no good.—Your loving son,
Vincent Perrin.
He fastened up the letter and addressed it to—
Mrs. Perrin,
Holly Cottage,
Bubblewick,
Bucks.
Just as he finished it he heard eleven o'clock strike. He waited until
the clocks had ended, then he opened his door and looked down the
passage. It was quite silent. He walked quietly down the stairs, down
the lower passage, and so to the dining-room.
Here the long tables were laid for breakfast. He paused at one of the
tables and chose one of the knives; they did not seem very sharp, and
he tried others on the hack of his hand. At last he had selected one and
put it under his coat. He returned to his room and closed his door. When
he got there he stood in the middle of his room, and looked stupidly
at the knife. What had he got it for? There was Traill next door... of
course.
But he could not do anything now. He had fancied that when one had got
the knife, then the next thing was to go straight and do something with
it. But he found that he could not, that he could not move from where he
was, and that his hand was shaking as though with an ague.
The knife dropped on to the floor with a sharp sound, and he sank into a
chair. What a wretched, miserable creature he was, after all! There
was nothing fine about him—there was nothing fine about anyone at
Moffatt's—they were all a miserable lot... and to-morrow there would be
speeches and prizes and cheering! What a funny thing life was!
But it was no use thinking about life with that knife on the floor. It
was quite clear that he wasn't going to do anything to-night—he might
just as well go to bed. His headache was dreadfully bad, and he was
shivering all over. He put the knife into a drawer and blew out his
lamp.
He hated the dark—he had always hated it—and so he hurried into his
bedroom and tried to light his candle, but his hand was shaking so that
it was a long time before he could strike a match, and he cursed the
matches feebly and felt inclined to cry.
He was a long time undressing and sat on the edge of the bed in his
shirt and looked at his long, thin legs and hated them; then he saw the
black marks on the yellow paper, and he scratched another off.... At
last he blew out the candle and got into bed.
He seemed to fall asleep all at once and was aware that he was
asleep—but after a time he felt that although he was asleep, he was
conscious of someone watching him. He opened his eyes and saw that the
other Mr. Perrin was sitting by his bed, watching him, and although the
room was quite dark, the gray figure was in some way luminous, so that
he could see that he wore a long, gray cloak and that his features were
exactly the same as his own. He was forced against his will to get out
of bed and to follow the other Mr. Perrin out of the house, down the
long, white road, down to the sea. Here they were in that little cove
where Traill and Miss Desart had been that afternoon. They sat with
their backs against the rocks, and in all the air there was a strange,
uncertain light, and the sea came over the shore in sullen, dreamy
movements, as a tired woman's fingers move when she is sewing.
Then Mr. Perrin saw that down the beach there passed a long procession
of gray, bending figures with heavy burdens on their backs. Their faces
were white and hopeless, and their hands, with long, white fingers, hung
at their sides.
He was conscious of some great feeling of injustice—that this must not
be allowed—and an over-mastering impulse to call out that it was all
wrong and to run forward and relieve them of their burdens—but he could
not move nor utter any sound. Then suddenly he recognized faces that he
knew, and he saw White and Birkland and Combers and Dormer and then—his
own.
He gave a great cry and broke from his companion and rushed swiftly back
up the white road, in through the black gates, up the stairs, and into
his room.
He stood in the middle of his room and felt suddenly cold. To his
surprise he saw that the moon was shining through the window, although
there had been no moon on the beach. The room was so bright that he
could distinguish every object perfectly—and then he realized slowly
that things were different. Those silver-backed hair-brushes were not
his, his bed was not there—that photograph....
Someone was in the bed.
For an instant his heart stopped beating. There was a draught between
the window and the door... someone else was in the bed; he had been
walking in his sleep; he was in Traill's room.
He could see Traill quite clearly now, lying with one hand on the
counterpane, his head on an arm. He was fast asleep, and his month was
smiling.
Mr. Perrin shook from head to foot. Here was his opportunity—here was
his enemy fast asleep... now. He stepped nearer to the bed—he bent over
the face. Traill's pyjama-jacket was open at the neck... it would be
very easy.
Then suddenly, with a little cry and his face in his hands, he crept
from the room.