THE next day, its brilliant sun and hard, shining cold, brought in its
train great things.
The last day of the Christmas term was in some ways greater than the
last day of the summer term, because it was a more private family
affair.
One addressed one's ancestors, one arrayed one's traditions, one
fashioned one's history, with flags and flowers and orations, but it was
in the midst of the family that it was done.
Parents—mothers and fathers and cousins—were indeed there, but they,
too, must recognize that it was not for their immediate individual
Johnny or Charles that these things were done, but rather for the great
worship and recognition of Sir Marmaduke Boniface.
Sir Marmaduke Boniface has hitherto received no mention in this slender
history, but his importance in any chronicle of Moffatt's cannot be
over-estimated. He was a Cornish; magnate, living and dying some hundred
years ago, growing rich in the pursuit of jam, building large stone
mansions out of that same delicacy, fat, pompous, and fading at last
into a heavy stone monument in the corner of the church at the bottom
of the Brown Hill—a great man in his day and in his place, amongst other
things the founder of Moffatt's.
It was not very long ago; outside the confines of Cornwall he had
been perhaps but vaguely recognized—perchance, perchance, the surest
foundation of an extravagant record.... No matter, here we have our
tradition, and let us make the best possible use of it.
But this Marmadukery—a hideous word, but it serves—spread far beyond
that stout originator. It was the spirit of the public school, the
esprit de corps signified by the School song (it began “Procul in
Cornubia,” and was violently shouted at stated intervals during the
year), the splendid appeal “to our fathers who have played in these
fields before us”—this was the cry that these banners and orations
signified. Moffatt's was not a very old school, true—but shout enough
about some founder or other and the smallest boy will have tears in his
eyes and a proud swelling at his breast. Sir Marmaduke becomes medieval,
mystic, “the great, good man” of history, and Moffatt's is “one of our
good old schools. There's nothing like our public school system, you
know—has its faults, of course; but tradition—that 's the Thing.”
The stout figure of Sir Marmaduke hangs heavy over the day. Everyone
feels it—everyone feels a great many other things as well, but Sir
Marmaduke is the Thing.
He was the Thing in some vague, blind way even to Mrs. Comber, so that
he kept coming into the confused but happy conversation to which she
treated anxious parents on the morning of this great day. Mothers
arrived in great numbers on these occasions, and these three great days
of the three terms were to Mrs. Comber the happiest and most confused
events in the year. They marked an approaching freedom, they marked the
immediate return of her own children, and they marked an amazing number
of things that ought to be done at once, with the confusing feeling
about Sir Marmaduke also in the air.
But to-day she was happy; this horrible, terrible term was almost over.
She had been so sure that something dreadful was going to happen, and
nothing dreadful had happened, after all. They were safe—or almost
safe—and her dear Isabel and Isabel's young man would be out of the
place before they knew where they were. Then her own Freddie had last
night, suddenly, before going to bed, taken her in his arms and kissed
her as he had never kissed her before. Oh! things were going to be all
right... they were escaping for a time at any rate. In the thought of
the holidays, of a month's freedom, everything that had happened during
the term was swiftly becoming faint and vague and distant.
Now she was smiling in her sitting-room with four mothers about her, one
very fat and one very thin, one in blue and one in gray, and they all
sat very stiff in their chairs and listened to what she had to say.
She had a great deal to say, because she was feeling so happy, and
happiness always provoked volubility, but she made the mistake of
talking to all four of them at once, and they, in vain, like anglers at
a pool, flung, desperately, hurried little sentences at her, but secured
no attention. Beyond and above it all was the shadow of Sir Marmaduke.
But her happiness, when she drove them at length from her, caught at
the advancing figure of Isabel, with a cry and a clasp of the hand: “My
dear!—no, we 've only got a minute, because lunch is early—one o'clock,
and cold—you don't mind, do you, dear; but there's to be such a dinner
to-night, and I've just had four mothers, and wise is n't the word for
what I've been, although I confused all their children as I always do,
bless their hearts. But, oh! the term's over, and I could go on my knees
and thank Heaven that it is, because I 've never hated anything so much,
and if it had lasted another week I should have struck off Mrs. Dormer's
head for the way she's treating you, for dead sure certain—”
“Archie's not coming back, you know,” Isabel interrupted.
“Oh, my dear, I knew. He went and saw Moy-Thompson last week, and of
course it's the wisest thing, and I only wish my Freddie was as young
and we'd be off from here tomorrow.” She stopped and sighed a little and
looked through the window at the hard, shining ground, the stiff, bare
trees, the sharp outline of the buildings. “But it's no use wishing,”
she went on cheerfully enough, “and we won't any of us think of next
term at all but only of the blessed month of freedom that's in front
of us.” Her voice softened; she put her hand on Isabel's arm. “All the
same, my dear, I'm glad you and Archie are getting away from it all. It
was touching him, you know.”
“Yes, I saw it,” the girl answered. “And I don't want him to
schoolmaster again if he can help it. I think with father's help he 'll
be able to get a Government office of some sort.” She hesitated, then
said, smiling a little, “Are you and Mr. Comber—” She stopped.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber bruskily, “we are—and there 's no doubt
that things are better than they have been. I suppose marriage is always
like that: there 's the thrilling time at first, and then you find it
is n't there any longer and you've got to make up your mind to getting
along. Things rub you up, you know, and I'm sure I 've been as tiresome
as anything, and then there's a good big row and the air's cleared—and
shall I wear that big yellow hat or the black one this afternoon?”
“The black one fits the day better,” said Isabel absent-mindedly. She
was wondering whether the time would ever come when she and Archie would
feel ordinary about each other.
“But isn't it funny,” she went on, “that here we are at the end of the
term, and already, with the holiday beginning, all our quarrels and
fights about things like that silly umbrella are seeming impossible? It
was all too absurd, and yet I was as angry as anyone.”
“It all comes,” said Mrs. Comber, “of our living too close. Now that
we're going to spread out over the holidays, we 're as friendly as
anything, although really, my dear, I hate Mrs. Dormer as much as
ever”—which was difficult to believe when that lady arrived at a
quarter-past two to pick up Mrs. Comber and Isabel and to go with them
to the prize-giving.
Her dress was obviously very stiff and difficult, with a high, black
neck to it, with little ridges of whalebone all around it, and out of
this she spoke and smiled. The two ladies were very pleasant to one
another as they walked down the path to the school hall.
“And where are you going for your Christmas vacation, Mrs. Comber?”
“I really don't know. It depends so much on the boys and the housemaid.
I mean the housemaid's given notice, you know, because I had to speak
to her about breathing when handing round the vegetables; and she gave
notice on the spot, as they all do when I speak to them, and unless I
can get another, I really don't think I shall ever be able to get away.”
“Really, what servants are coming to!” Mrs. Dormer was struggling
with her collar like a dog. “Poor Mrs. Comber, I am so sorry—of course
management's the thing, but we haven't all the gift and can't expect to
have it.”
“And Mrs. Dormer, I do hope that you are going to be here over
Christmas, so that we can keep each other company. It would be so nice
if you and Mr. Dormer would come to us on Boxing evening, even if I have
n't got a housemaid, and I heard of a very likely one from Mrs. Rose
yesterday—quite a nice girl she sounded—who's been under-parlormaid at
Colonel Forster's now for the last five years, and never a fault to find
with her except a tendency to catching cold, which made her sniff at
times.”
“Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Comber; but my husband and I are hoping to
spend a few days in London about that time. Otherwise we should have
loved—”
For so much charity is the presence of Sir Marmaduke Boniface
responsible. II.
Sir Marmaduke, and all that his coming signified, was also responsible
for clearing the air in other directions. Young Traill found, on this
morning, that people were very much pleasanter to him than they had
hitherto been. The coming holidays were obviously to be a truce, and, as
he was not returning next term, it was an end of things so far as he was
concerned. He could not feel proud of it all. The events of the term
had shown him that he was not nearly so fine a fellow as he had thought
himself. His pride, his temper, his irritation—all these things were
lions with which he had never fought before: now they must always, for
the future, be consciously kept in check.
He was tired, exhausted, worn-out. He was very glad that he was going
away—now he would be able to have Isabel to himself, and they might,
together, forget this horrible nightmare of a term. He looked on the
buildings of Moffatt's as the iron prison of some hideous dream. He
could not sleep for the thought of it. Last night he had had some bad
dream... he could not remember now what it had been, but he had wakened
suddenly in a great panic, to imagine that someone was closing his door.
Of course it had only been the wind, but he hoped that he would sleep
properly to-night.
At any rate he was glad that people were going to be pleasant to him on
this last day of the term. The stout Miss Madder, Dormer, Clinton—they
all seemed to be sorry that he was going, in spite of all the trouble
that he had made. He did not think of Perrin....
Then he suddenly remembered Birkland. He would go and say good-by to
him.
He climbed the steep stairs and found the little man busily packing. The
floor was covered with packing cases, books lay about in piles, and the
air was full of dust.
“Hullo!” said Traill, coughing in the doorway, “what's all this?”
“Hullo!” said Birkland, looking up. “I'm glad you 've come. I was coming
round to see you, if you hadn't. I'm off for good.”
“Off for good!” Traill stared in astonishment.
“Well, for good or bad. The things that have happened this term have
finally screwed me up to a last attempt. One more struggle before I
die—nothing can be worse than this—I gave notice last week.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Traill.
“I don't know—it's mad enough, I expect. But I've saved a tiny hit of
money that will keep me for a time. I shall have a shot at anything.
Nothing can he as bad as this—nothing!”
He stood up, looking grim and scant enough in his shirt-sleeves with
dust on his cheeks and his hair on end.
“Well, I'm damned!” said Traill. “Well, after all, I'm on the same game.
I don't know what I'm going to do either. We 're both in the same box.”
“Oh!” said Birkland, “you've got youth and a beautiful lady to help you.
I'm alone, and most of the spirit's knocked out of me after twenty years
of this; but I'm going to have a shot—so wish me luck!”
“Why, of course I do,” said Traill, coming up to him. “We 'll do it
together—we 'll see heaps of each other.”
“Ah! heaps!” said Birkland, shaking his head. “No, I'm too dry and dusty
a stick by this time for young fellows like you. No, I'm better alone.
But I 'll come and see you one day.”
“You were quite right,” said Traill suddenly, “in what you said about
the place the evening at the beginning of the term when I came in to see
you. You were quite right.”
“Poor boy,” said Birkland, looking at him affectionately, “you had a
hard dose of it. Perhaps it was all for the best, really. It drove
you out. If I'd been treated to that kind of row at the beginning,
I mightn't have been here twenty years. And, after all, you met Miss
Desart here.”
“Yes,” said Traill, “that makes it worth it fifty times over.”
“And now,” went on Birkland grimly, “this afternoon you shall see the
closing scene of our pageant. You shall see our glory, our tradition.
You will hear the head of our body state his satisfaction with the
term's work, proclaim his delight at the friendly spirit that pervades
the school, allude, through the great Sir Marmaduke Boniface, maker of
strawberry jam, to our ancient and honorable tradition in which we all,
from the eldest to the youngest, have our humble share.” He spread his
arms. “Oh! the mockery of it! To get out of it!—to get out of it! And
now, at last, after twenty years, I'm going. If it hadn't been for you,
Traill, I believe I'd be here still. Well, perhaps it's to breaking
stones on a road that I'm going... at any rate, it won't be this.”
And so here, too, Sir Marmaduke Boniface is remembered and has his
influence. III.
But with all these fine spirits, with all this stir and friendly
feeling, with all this preparation for a great event, Mr. Perrin had
little to do. This morning had, in no way, been for him a reconciling
or a triumph at approaching freedom. After some three or four hours'
troubled and confused sleep he awoke to the humiliating, maddening
consciousness that he had again, now for the second time, missed his
chance.
This one thing that he had thought he could do he had missed once more;
not even at this last, blind vengeance was he any good.
To-morrow it would be too late; Traill, his enemy, would be gone,
they would all be gone, and he would return, next term, the same
insignificant creature at whom they had all laughed for so long; and
then it would be worse than ever, because Traill would have escaped him,
and in the distant ages it would be told how once there had been a young
man, straight from the University, who had flung him to the ground
and trampled on him, and beaten him, in all probability, with his own
umbrella....
Ah, no! it was not to be borne—the thing must be done; there must be no
missing of an opportunity this third time.
He heard the Repetition that morning with a vacant mind.
Somerset-Walpole knew nothing about it, but for once in his life he
suffered no punishment. Perrin thought afterwards that Garden Minimus
had looked at him as though he would like to speak to him, but he could
not think of Garden Minimus now—there were other more important things
to think about.
Of course it must be done that night—there was only one night left.
Afterwards he thought that he would go down to the sea and drown
himself. He had heard that drowning was rather pleasant.
His mind was busy, all that morning, with the things that everyone would
say afterwards. He wished very much that he could stay behind in some
way that he might hear what they said. At any rate, they would be able
to laugh at him no longer; he would appear to all of them as something
terrible, portentous, awful... that, at any rate, was a satisfaction.
Miss Desart, of course, would be sorry. That was a pity, because he did
not wish to hurt Miss Desart; but, in the end, it would be all for the
best, because she was much too good for a man like Traill and would only
be unhappy if she married him.
What a scene there would be when they found Traill in bed with his
throat cut!—no, they would not laugh at him again!
He spoke to nobody that morning; but, when Repetition was over, he went
back to his room and sat there, quite still, in his chair, looking in
front of him, with the door closed.
And then Traill came up and spoke to him just as he was on his way up to
the school for the speeches.
He smiled and said, “Oh! I say, Perrin, do let us make it all up—now
that term is over, and I 'm not coming back. I do hate to think that we
should not part friends—it's all been my stupid fault, and I am so very
sorry.”
But Perrin did not stop, nor answer. He walked straight up the path
with his eyes looking neither to the left nor the right. After all, you
couldn't shake hands with a man whose throat you were going to cut in
the evening. He heard Traill's exasperated “Oh! very well,” and then he
passed into Big School.
He stepped into the hall as unobtrusively as possible. The boys were
always there first, and it was their way to cheer the masters as they
came in. If you were very popular, they cheered you loudly; if you were
unpopular, they cheered you not at all. Perrin had no illusions about
his popularity, and the silence on his entrance did not therefore
surprise him, but matters were not improved by the roar of cheering that
greeted Traill. Ah, well! they would never cheer him again.
The boys were placed in rows down the room according to their forms, and
the masters sat where they pleased. Perrin stationed himself in a corner
by the wall at the back; he fastened his eyes on the platform and kept
them there until the end of the ceremonies—no one noticed him—no one
spoke to him—not for him were their songs and festivals.
The raised platform at the end of the hall was surrounded with flowers,
and ranged against the wall, seated on hard, uncertain chairs were the
Governing Body, or as many of the Governing Body as had spared time to
come.
These were for the most part large, serious, elderly gentlemen, with
stout bodies, and shining, beady eyes; their immovability implied that
they considered that the business would be sooner over were they passive
and as nonexistent as possible—they all wore a considerable amount of
watch-chain.
In front of them was a long, black table, and on this were ranged
the prizes—a number of impossibly shiny volumes that might have been
biscuit-tins, for all the reading that they seemed to contain. Beside
them in a wooden armchair was seated a little man like a sparrow,
in patent leather boots and a high, white collar, whose smile was
intermittent, but regular.
This was Sir Arthur Spalding, who had been asked to give away the
prizes, because ten other gentlemen had been invited and refused. On the
other side of the table the Rev. Moy-Thompson tried to express geniality
and authority by the curves of his fingers and the bend of his head;
he stroked his beard at intervals. In the front rows the ladies were
seated: Mrs. Comber, large and smiling, in purple; Mrs. Moy-Thompson,
endeavoring to escape her husband's eye, but drawn thither continually
as though by a magnet; the Misses Madder, Mrs. Dormer, Isabel, and many
parents.
The proceedings opened with a speech from the Rev. Moy-Thompson. He
alluded, of course, in the first place to Sir Marmaduke Boniface, “our
founder, hero, and example”; then by delicate stages to Sir Arthur
Spalding, whose patent leather boots simply shone with delight at the
pleasant things that were said. This preface over, he dilated on the
successes of the term. K. Somers had been made a Commissioner of
Police in Orang-Mazu-Za (cheers); W. Binnors had been fifteenth in
an examination that had something to do with Tropical Diseases
(more cheers); M. Watson had received the College Essay Prize at St.
Catherine's College, Cambridge; and C. Duffield had obtained a second
class in the first part of the Previous Examination at the same
university (frantic cheering, because Duffield had been last year's
captain of the Rugby football.) All this, Mr. Moy-Thompson said, was
exceedingly encouraging, and they could not help reflecting that Sir
Marmaduke Boniface, were he conscious of these successes, would be
extremely pleased (cheers). Passing on to the present term, he was
delighted to be able to say that never, in all his long period as
headmaster, could he remember a more equable and energetic term
(cheers). As a term it had been marked perhaps by no events of
special magnitude, but rather by the cordial friendliness of all those
concerned. Masters and boys, they had all worked together with a
will. It was a familiar saying that “a nation was blessed that had no
history”—well, that applied to such a term as the one just concluded
(cheers). If he might allude once more to their excellent Founder, he
was quite sure that Sir Marmaduke Boniface was precisely the kind of man
to rejoice in this spirit of friendship (cheers). He must here allude
for a moment to his staff. Surely a headmaster had never been surrounded
with so pleasant a body of men—men who understood exactly the kind of
esprit de corps necessary if a school's work were to be properly carried
on; men who put aside all private feelings for the one great purpose of
making Moffatt's a great school—that was, he truly believed, the one aim
and object of every man and boy in Moffatt's—they might be sure that
was the one and only aim and object that he ever kept before him. He
had nothing more to do but introduce Sir Arthur Spalding, who would give
away the prizes.
Mr. Moy-Thompson sat down, hot and inspired, amidst a burst of frantic
cheering and clapping, but was suddenly chilled by the consciousness
of Mr. Perrin's eyes glaring at him in the strangest manner across the
room. He shifted his chair a little to the left, so that a boy's head
intervened. The Governing Body at the conclusion of his speech moved
their heads to the right, then to the left, smiled once, and resumed
their immovability.
Sir Arthur Spalding was nervous, but found courage to say that he
believed in our public schools—that was the thing that made men of us—he
should never forget what he himself owed to Harrow. He should like
to say one thing to the boys—that they were not to think that winning
prizes was everything. We couldn't all win prizes; let those who failed
to obtain them remember that “slow and steady wins the race.” It wasn't
always the boys who won prizes who got on best afterwards. No—um—ah—he
never used to win prizes at school himself. It wasn't always the
boys—here he pulled himself up and remembered that he had said it
before. There was something else that he'd wanted to say, but he'd quite
forgotten what it was. Here he was conscious of Mr. Perrin's eyes and
thought that he'd never seen anything so discouraging. He did not seem
to be able to escape them. What a dangerous-looking man!
So he hurriedly concluded. Just one word he'd like to leave them from
our great poet Tennyson—! He looked for the little piece of paper on
which he had written the verse. He could not find it; he searched
his pockets—no—where had he put it? Lady Spalding, in the third row,
suffered horrible agonies. He recovered himself and was vague. He would
advise them all to read Tennyson, a fine poet, a very fine poet—yes—and
now he would give away the prizes. IV.
Meanwhile, Mr. Perrin up to the commencement of Mr. Moy-Thompson's
speech, had been merely conscious that a period of waiting had, so to
speak, “to be put in.” He was not aware, in the very least, that his
eyes were causing both Sir Arthur Spalding and Mr. Moy-Thompson acute
discomfort; he was not aware that boys were looking at him, watching him
with eager curiosity and nudging one another, speculatively. He was not
aware that Isabel's eyes were upon him, eyes of pity “because he looked
so queer, as though he had a headache.”
He stood there, beside the small round-eyed boys of the First and Second
Forms, staring in front of him, without moving. The first words of
Moy-Thompson's speech fell upon his ears unconsciously. It did not
matter what they said, it did not matter what they thought, the case at
issue was between himself and Traill and he faced that with an irritated
impatience at these tiresome hours that kept him from his eager
realization.
He began slowly to understand the things that Moy-Thompson was saying.
And suddenly it was as though he had, morally and mentally, taken
himself, forcibly, out of one room into another—out of a room in which
there was only Traill's figure, gray, shadowy, by the door, otherwise
dark, obscured by a clinging mist... a dangerous place... into a place
that had for its furniture tangible things, things like this speech that
Moy-Thompson was making, things that had to do with no especial figure,
but rather with a vast, intolerable condition, with a system.
What was he saying?... How dare he? Perrin moved impatiently in his
place. He looked at the row of faces raised to the platform, the silly,
stupid faces. That Mrs. Thompson in her thin black dress with her bony
neck; that silly, cheerful Mrs. Comber in her bulging, flaming garments;
that Lady Spalding, so stiff and sharp, as though she were of any
importance to anyone—all of them listening to these things that
Moy-Thompson was saying, and believing them, believing these... Lies!
Traill was almost forgotten as Perrin stepped a little forward from the
wall in order that he might hear better. The sight of Moy-Thompson's
face up there on the platform smiling, so complacent, patriarchal with
that white beard wagging at the end of it, brought the blood to his
head. He clenched his thin hands. What were the other men doing that
they could stand there and listen to these lies? Why did they not step
forward and tell the truth to all those stupid women and those fat
governors, to the little man with the shining boots on the platform?
They knew that these thing were lies. Had not this term been hell, had
it not been slow torture for them all, had not that man with the white
beard full knowledge of these lies that he was telling? What was his
private quarrel with Traill as compared with this monstrous injustice?
He was pale now, with a long red mark against the white of his cheek. He
had stepped right away from the wall and the small boys of the First and
Second Forms were watching him.
It came upon him suddenly, like a flash from the lightning of heaven,
that it was for him to escape these things. He had suffered more than
the others, he knew better than they the things that were done in this
place! Something was going round in his head like a red-hot wire, but he
remembered, even at that confused moment, that scene a few days before
in the common room, when they had all been so nearly stirred to revolt
by Birkland. What if he were to break the bonds?... What rot! what rot!
what rot! He could have shouted it to the roof—“Lies! Lies! Lies!”
There was a little stir and rustle as Moy-Thompson finished his
speech—ladies' dresses moved against the chairs, boots slipped along the
floor—and then a burst of cheering and clapping. Perrin rubbed his hands
against one another—they were hot and dry and something rather like a
bobbin on a latch went up and down in his throat—his eyes were burning.
He moved a little further from the wall and a little nearer to the
central gangway between the blocks of boys.
And now Sir Arthur Spalding stood nervously behind the glittering copies
of “Tennyson's Poems,” Sir Robert Ball's “Wonders of the Heavens,” “The
Works of Spencer,” and other volumes of our admirable classics. They
began with the bottom of the school, and a small fat boy with a crimson
face, boots that creaked like a badly-oiled door and were shaped like
Chinese boats, staggered up to the platform. A lady, prominent for
her size and large picture hat moved eagerly in her chair, clapped
vehemently with her white gloves and so proclaimed herself a mother.
Sir Arthur Spalding had every intention of making a pleasant speech to
each prizewinner—“something that they could remember afterwards, you
know”—and began to say something to the small and red-faced boy, but was
startled by the sound of eager, anticipatory breathing close to his ear.
Turning round, he discovered that three more small boys were waiting
anxiously for their turn and that others were coming up the room. He
therefore hurried along with “Here you are, my boy. Remember that prizes
aren't everything in life—hope you 'll read it—delightful book.”
Mr. Perrin watched these boys passing up and down with eager eyes. He
must wait—now was not the time, but soon there would be another speech
to thank the absurd man with the boots for giving the prizes away. To
his excited fancy it seemed to him now that the rest of the staff were
looking at him as though they knew what he was going to do. They must
have felt as indignant as he did at those lies that this man had been
telling them. But those governors should know the truth for once at any
rate and in a way that they should not forget... strangely, in the back
of his mind he wished that his mother could be present....
The senior boys were going up for their prizes now and were cheered
according to their popularity. The Cricket captain, an enormous fellow,
had secured something for Mathematics, and the room burst into a tempest
of applause as he moved heavily up to the platform. He seemed very
pleased with it all, Mr. Perrin thought, and received his prize with a
flushed face and a friendly smile, and yet he had always been one of the
leading rebels in the school. How easily these people were subdued, with
a book and a few pleasant words—fool! Mr. Perrin's breath came quicker
as he watched the boy stumble back to his seat.
Then, the prizes delivered, Mr. Moy-Thompson rose to say a few words.
It had been very gratifying, he said, to all of them to have so
distinguished a visitor as Sir Arthur Spalding amongst them that
afternoon. It must have been difficult for Sir Arthur to have found time
amongst so many engagements to come and spend an afternoon with them.
(Cheers—Sir Arthur conveys a sense of hurry and confusion and looks at
his shirt cuffs as though his engagements were written down there.) They
on their part were greatly the gainers because there was no one in the
room, however young, however inexperienced, who would not remember, as
long as he lived, those words of encouragement and cheer. Indeed, it
was not only for the winners of prizes that life was intended (here
Mr. Moy-Thompson repeated many of Sir Arthur Spalding's remarks and
the governors moved restlessly in their chairs), but (and here
Mr. Moy-Thompson started on a new note) it might not be, perhaps,
presumptuous of him to hope that it was not only for them that afternoon
might have pleasant memories. For Sir Arthur Spalding also, he might
hope, there would be times in the future when he would look back and
remember that he had seen, for an instant at least, one of our British
public schools in one of its happiest and most prosperous phases. He
might flatter himself—
“It 's all lies!”
The voice cut into the quiet and solemnity of the occasion like a knife.
To the small hoys of the First and Second Forms, tired already of the
over-long ceremony, their eyes wandering restlessly about the room,
there may perhaps have been no surprise. They had watched that strange
master of theirs—“that old ass Pompous”—seen his edging from the wall
into the center of the room, seen his eyes burning, his hands clenching
and unclenching, his lips moving. To them that sudden cry, that sudden
lifting of a fist as though he would strike the patriarch to his feet,
could have come with no uncalculated emotion. But to the rest, to the
governors heavily somnolent, to Sir Arthur Spalding plaintively desiring
his tea, to Mrs. Moy-Thompson, to Mrs. Comber, the matrons, the staff,
the rest of the school, it came driving through the place like a wind,
“What? Who?...” They rose in their places, they uttered little cries,
they stood on the forms, but no one stopped that voice—they were held,
paralyzed.
And there were very few there who, in after days, forgot that strange
figure, standing in the back of the room, the light of the high window
upon him, his thin figure strung to its tensest, his hand raised, his
gaunt cheeks white, his eyes on fire....
“It's lies, all lies!” The words came tumbling out one upon another. “I
don't care—I must speak. Ladies and gentlemen,”—he caught his throat for
a moment with his hand—“I know that this is no occasion for saying those
things, but no one else has the courage—the courage. It is not true what
he has been saying”—he pointed a vehement, trembling finger at the white
patriarch. “We are unhappy here, all of us. We are downtrodden by
that man—we are not paid enough—we are not considered at all—never
considered—everything is wrong—we all hate each other—we hate him—he
hates us—we are unhappy—it is all hell.”
He felt that his voice was quivering. He knew that he was shaking from
head to foot. He cried once more querulously, “It is all hell here...
hell!”
And then, suddenly, with head hanging and his hands dropping hopelessly
to his side, he turned and, amidst an intense silence, left the room by
the wide doors behind him.
There rose, like the murmur of the sea, from the body of the school:
“It 's Perrin.”