HE was entirely unconscious of the world about him as he hurried across
the green quadrangles to his rooms. He saw no sky, nor flying clouds,
nor grass, nor gray buildings. He thought not at all of any effect that
his words may have on the people that had heard them; he had no interest
in what had happened after he had left the building. The one fact
was there before him, that he, Perrin, the despised, the mocked, the
rejected, had flung into the midst of them all his bomb. They might
hate him now; the governors and the rest might expel him furiously; they
might deny indignantly his accusations, but they could not, any longer,
ignore him. His little room was strangely cool and gray and quiet.
Everything in it watched him with as sedate and respectable an air as
though nothing tremendous had happened, the hooks, the old chairs,
the little specks of dust floating in the sunlight, and then suddenly
something gleaming from beneath the pile of examination papers on the
table. He turned the papers over, and there, shining against the old,
worn-out tablecloth, was the knife. He stared at it and then very slowly
and thoughtfully put it away in a drawer. He did not want it now. He was
surprised, amazed, at the indifference with which he looked at it. That
morning it had meant so much, now——
It was not Traill that he was going to kill; it was something larger,
greater, more sweeping—a system, and at the head of the system, a
tyrant.
He walked up and down his room with his hands tightly clenched behind
his back. As the minutes passed he grew cooler and more collected. What
would they do? They could not pass over so public a defiance; there must
be an enquiry, there would have to be witnesses. The curious illusions
that had been with him during these last weeks—the illusions about the
other Mr. Perrin, for instance, and that strange fancy about Traill
being always in the room—had vanished suddenly. Things were as they most
certainly appeared to be; that table, those chairs were most solidly
there, and Mr. Perrin touched them with his hands and smiled at their
solidity. Then also it was odd that those incidents that had seemed only
that morning of such paramount importance were now insignificant. That
quarrel over the umbrella, for instance—really, how absurd! When one
was a rebel, a Prometheus, one of the Titans, why then this ignominious
quarreling was a small affair. He pushed all the question of Traill
aside with almost a contemptuous smile. There were bigger things now in
the world.
What would they do? That was now the all-important question. What would
the staff do? Perrin sat in his armchair by his smoldering fire and
thought about them all. Birk-land with his superior sarcasm, Comber with
his bullying patronage, West the vulgarian, the puppy Traill; now they
would see that there was someone who could do more talking; now they
would find that they owed their deliverance to someone whom they had
hitherto despised.
He was elated; he was triumphant. He saw himself in the midst of that
hall, standing before them all, denouncing that iniquity....
The afternoon drew to evening. Many voices had sounded below his window,
but the summer evening was now drawing, softly and quietly, about the
world. Voices came like notes of music at long intervals across the
darkening lawns. It was nearly seven o'clock and presently it would be
time for chapel. The staff always gathered in the Senior common room
before chapel and they would all be there now. As he paced his room Mr.
Perrin saw them gathered there, talking.
He felt an eager impatience to know what they were saying. Of course
they would be talking about him, discussing it all. His impatience grew.
He felt that he could not go into chapel until he had heard what they
had to say. He saw them turn as he entered the room, their sudden
silence, and then their eager coming forward. They would tell him their
plans; perhaps they had already prepared a written protest supporting
his own outburst.
He must go. He hurriedly put on his gown and hastened with shining eyes
and a beating heart to the Upper School.
He heard, before he opened the door, the buzz of voices, and he entered
the room proudly. They were all gathered about the fire—all of them,
he thought, except Traill. Birkland was in the middle of them and they
seemed to be all talking at once, West's voice above the others.
“Oh, but of course he 's dotty. It's been coming on for years.”
And the other voices came together:
“Well, they ought to have kept him out of the place. It's a disgrace, a
thing like that happening.”
“Moy-Thompson's face! I wouldn't have missed it for all the holidays in
the world!”
“No, but really someone ought to have stopped him. He seemed to have got
started before anyone saw him.”
“Little Spalding thought bombs were being flung about by the look of
him.”
But Perrin was too greatly elated to pay very much attention to these
speeches. He had heard nothing. He advanced up the long room with a
smile and his head held high, his gown swinging behind him.
They had heard the door open and now they stood almost in a line, by the
fire, watching him come up the room. They were quite silent and made no
movement. They watched him.
He was stopped in his advance, suddenly, by their faces. They were
watching him, he thought, curiously.
His confidence began to leave him.
“It's nearly chapel time,” he said uneasily. “Hum! ha!”
There was no answer.
“Well, Birkland, I 've put your words into deeds, haven't I? Yes,
indeed, hum, ha. I thought it an admirable opportunity.” He stopped
again.
Birkland murmured something. West and Comber had turned away and were
looking at the papers.
Perrin felt that he was growing angry. It was so like them to grudge him
any little importance that he might have obtained. They were jealous, of
course, and wished that they had had the courage to step forward. They;
had missed their opportunity and were indignant with him now because he
had seized his—well!
“Yes,” he said, the color mounting to his cheeks; “I flatter myself that
something will come of it. It will be difficult for them, I think, to
disregard that altogether—hum—yes.”
There was still silence and then, at last, Birkland said slowly:
“Going to chapel to-night, Perrin?”
“Chapel?” sharply. “Yes, of course.”
Again silence. Then Comber said pompously:
“Look here, Perrin. Take advice from me and have a good rest. I should
go to bed now if I were you. It 's a good holiday that you 're wanting.
Take my advice. Bed's the place—shouldn't go to chapel if I were
you—hem.”
“No, shouldn't go to chapel,” repeated Dormer slowly.
Perrin began to breathe qnickly. “What do you mean?” he cried. “Why
shouldn't I go to chapel? What do you mean about a holiday?”
“You 're tired,” Birkland said qnickly. “That's what it is. We're all
tired—overdone. We've all been feeling it for weeks. It's a good thing
term's come to an end. I knew something would happen. You 're tired,
Perrin.”
“Tired!” He turned snarling upon them, his eyes flaming. “Tired!
It's jealousy, that's what it is! You don't like to see me taking the
lead—you hate my coming to the front. You've always hated me, the lot
of you. You 're jealous, that's what it is. You 're cruel”—his voice
suddenly broke—“I was helping you all. That's why I spoke—and now—”
And then with head hanging, he rushed blindly from the room. II.
Back to his room again, muttering, “Jealous, that's what they
are—beasts! Jealous! My God, they 're beasts!”
He lit his lamp with trembling fingers and then on the table he saw a
note. It was from the school-sergeant and ran thus:
'.ir:
Mr. Moy-Thompson would be greatly obliged if you could find it possible
to step round and see him for a few minutes directly after chapel....
So it had come. He flung off his gown and stared at the dark frame of
the window. The chapel bell was clanging its last notes—the boys from
the Lower School passed under his window in a stream and their noisy
chatter came up to him. It was a wonderful night—the dark-swelling trees
rose in dim clouds against the silver field of stars. The bells stopped
and very faintly he could hear the organ. He was conscious that his head
was aching and he flung the window wide open and drank in the evening
scents. He had passed with all the incoherent swiftness of his feverish
brain from the insults that he had received in the Senior common room
to his approaching interview with the headmaster. Let them rot! He might
have known that that would be the way that they would take it—he was a
fool to have expected anything else. His mind sped on to the future. He
would force them all to see the kind of man that he was. He must brace
himself up for this interview with Moy-Thompson, because this was to be
the decisive crisis of the battle. When he had shown him how determined
he was, when he had made it evident that he would withdraw no jot or
tittle of his accusation, then indeed he would have the place at his
feet. To-morrow, when they had all heard of this interview, they would
sound a very different note.
He leaned out of his window, drinking in the air. He wished that he were
cooler and that he could think more connectedly. He did not know why it
was, but as soon as he had caught a thought and fixed it there securely,
and had hastened after another, the first one was gone again.
His thoughts were like fish in a pool. And then suddenly he thought
of Traill—-Traill I Why was it that for weeks Traill had been his one
thought and that now he did not count at all? There was a connection
somewhere between all that personal quarrel and now this sudden public
outburst. It had its link, but as he pressed his hand to his head he
confessed that he was bewildered, that that scene in the common room had
been a check and that he scarcely knew, in this bewilderment, what it
was that he was going to do.
He sat down in his armchair with the open window behind him, although
it was midwinter. He could hear them singing the End of Term Hymn—“Lord,
dismiss us with Thy Blessing”—and singing it too with vigor that,
exultantly, proclaimed the first happy glimpse of approaching freedom.
He shook his shoulders with irritation and got up and closed the window.
Then he sat down again and considered the matter.
Moy-Thompson's reception of him offered two possible alternatives. He
could be humble or he could he arrogant—he could plead for mercy or
he might try to bully Perrin into submission. Those were the only two
possibilities. In the first case one would of course be as lenient as
possible. Perrin smiled a very bitter smile as he thought of this. There
would be things of course on which he would insist, demands that he must
make, but he would treat Moy-Thompson gently and if certain concessions
were made he would promise to say no more to the governors.
On the other hand, if Moy-Thompson attempted to bully.... Perrin gripped
the sides of his chair—well, he would find that he had made a mistake.
The pale face flushed, the tired eyes glowed, the thin body trembled—in
half an hour there would be this battle!
In half an hour!—in less than half an hour! Already the opening of the
chapel doors flung the organ in a fresh burst of sound upon the evening
breeze. The boys once more passed the windows, shouting and singing.
On ordinary evenings they were disciplined and quiet and passed into
preparation in a proper state of chastened docility; but to-night was
the last night of the term—there was to be a concert—and by this time
to-morrow—
They shouted as they ran into the lighted buildings and then once more
there was silence—the organ had ceased and the chapel doors were closed.
Perrin put on his gown and went out. He was stepping at last into the
very heart of the business. He seemed to see that in reality his
enemy had been Moy-Thompson from the beginning. That old man, with the
ingenuity of the devil, had put young Traill in front of him and Perrin
had thought that it was Traill that he was fighting, but now he saw,
with extraordinary clarity, that Moy-Thompson was behind everything.
That spider with that dark study for his web was spinning, always
spinning—more effectively than any of them knew. In his own room with
its dim light, surrounded by such silence, the shadows of that other
room into which he was going frightened him against his will. He was
determined that he would, in no way, surrender or give in, but at the
back of his mind was an undefined suspicion that, in some fashion,
Moy-Thompson would get the better of him.
He wished, as he went across the quadrangle, that his heart was not
beating quite so quickly and that his brain was clearer. Moy-Thompson's
study was dark save for the circle of light from the lamp on his table
by the fire; the firelight leapt and danced, flinging the classical
busts on the high shelves into a sudden derisive proximity to the white
beard at the table, playing with the tables and chairs, dancing with
flashes of golden light up and down the heavy, somber carpet.
Moy-Thompson was writing gravely, intently, at the table, and did not
raise his head until he heard the click of the door. Then he put his pen
down slowly, looked up and smiled.
“Ah, Mr. Perrin—do come in. I hope it wasn't inconvenient for you coming
at this time? Sit down, won't you?”
Perrin pulled himself up suddenly; his thin nervous figure showed
haggard and worn in the firelight. What did this mean? He tried to
collect his thoughts. No, thank you, he would rather stand.
“But you must be tired—you must indeed. Really, I insist—this easy-chair
by the fire.” Perrin, clutching his mortar-board between his hands, sat
down.
“I'm sure you 'll excuse me whilst I just address this letter—hum,
yes—only a minute.” A silence, during which some heavy clock ticked
solemnly in the distance: “Of course, he 'll wait—of course, he 'll
wait—of course, he 'll wait.”
At last, Moy-Thompson swung round, away from the table and faced Perrin.
His heard seemed to bristle with friendliness. He was very large, his
clothes were very black, his fingers were very long.
“Now, Mr. Perrin, I'm not going to keep you long—really, only a few
moments, hum, yes. I'm sure you 're tired after a long day. But come,
Mr. Perrin (this, leaning forward genially), we've got to discuss this
matter, you know. Let us be friendly about it. I can assure you that I
have nothing but the most friendly feelings towards you in this matter.”
Perrin flushed and half rose from his chair. “No, please, Mr. Perrin, I
beg of you—please be seated—hum—I really am most anxious to prove to you
that I am nothing but friendly in this matter.” Moy-Thompson paused and
tapped his nails, with sharp little rattling noises, one against
the other. “Now, Mr. Perrin, I'm sure you must agree with me that a
disturbance like that of this afternoon is exceedingly unusual and I may
say with very considerable truth that no one who was present was more
completely and remarkably surprised than myself. I do not pretend,” he
went on with a smile and lifting a deprecating hand towards the fire,
“that I am so pleasantly self-assured as to believe that there is no
unsound plank in this good ship of ours; there are many things, I am
sure, that would be the better for a newer and a younger hand, but I had
supposed—and naturally supposed, I think—that any complaints that there
were would be brought to the committee or myself privately. From time to
time complaints have been brought to me and I may say that I have always
dealt with them to the best of my ability, but—” here Moy-Thompson
paused, looked at Perrin, and then smiled very gently—“do you know that
you are the very last man whom I should have expected to have come to me
with any complaint of any kind?”
Perrin had made no reply, had attempted to make no reply to this long
speech. He sat in his chair without any other movement than the regular
and rapid turning of the mortarboard between his hands. His head was
bent towards the floor. At this last word he looked up as though he
would reply and half started from his chair.
Moy-Thompson held forward his large white hand.
“No—please, a moment—may I not explain myself? although it needs surely
no explanations. I mean the admirable relationship that has always, I
believe, existed between us. I must confess that if I had yesterday been
questioned as to which of my staff I could most securely trust and honor
I should have named yourself.” He paused and then slowly added, “I
need scarcely remind you that it is only a fortnight since there passed
between us, in this very room, an interview of the most friendly and
confidential description.”
There was no word from the chair.
“You must remember that, during the many years that have passed since
you have been with me here you have made no kind of complaint. You have
had many, very many opportunities, for voicing things freely to me. I
have always been frank with you—you 've seized none of them. All the
more amazing, the more compelling my surprise then, at what occurred
to-day.”
At last there was a pause that demanded a reply. The room was filled
with silence and neither man moved. Perrin was striving to clear his
brain. What was he to say? What had he come to say? Where were all the
things that he had thought out so carefully in his study? Moreover,
it was true; it was all amazingly true. They had been friends, he and
Moy-Thompson, all these years, great friends. Other members of the
staff may have rebelled and quarreled and disputed, but he had always
supported authority. He remembered now with a kind of dazed surprise the
pleasure that he had taken in those little quarter-of-an-hour interviews
in that very room. This momentous and horrible fact rose now before
him and froze any reply that he might make. He had been Moy-Thompson's
devoted henchman for twenty years—was he the right man to head a
rebellion now?
In spite of the long silence he made no reply.
“Well,” said Mr. Moy-Thompson, rubbing one hand against another, “I see
that you admit, Mr. Perrin, that there is justice in some of my remarks.
These things are facts—that you have been twenty years without a
complaint, and that until this afternoon you and I (here more rubbing
of the hands) were working shoulder to shoulder at a hard task that
demanded our friendly cooperation. Then suddenly there is this outbreak;
an outbreak unprecedented in the annals of our school; an outbreak for
which there is no obvious reason; an outbreak that is in its nature, I
should imagine, extremely foreign to your own character and habits—”
Mr. Moy-Thompson paused an instant and then suddenly, “Well, what is the
only explanation? What can be the only explanation?”
Still no word from Mr. Perrin.
“Well,” continued Mr. Moy-Thompson genially, “overwork, of course.
Overwork. We have perhaps all noticed that, during these last weeks,
things were being a little too much for you—hum—yes—natural enough,
natural enough. We 're all tired at times and it's a long time since you
were out of harness—yes, indeed.”
“I 'm not tired.”
“Ah, well, perhaps the onlookers, in some cases, see the most of the
game. But you must admit that it affords an admirable and sufficient
excuse for to-day's little episode—the only excuse indeed (this a little
more sharply)—but an excuse that we all of us—I speak for others as
well as myself—are only too ready to seize. A holiday, my friend, a
holiday—there we have our doctor's medicine.”
Out of the waters of misery that were closing about him the man raised
his head. Of all the many things that had come upon him this was the
worst. He faced it with despair—he knew as he heard the other man's
words pour along like a river that he had nothing to say. How could he
make a fine rebel when the day before yesterday he had been assisting
and abetting? How could he make a fine rebel when they all thought that
he was merely overdone? How could he make a fine rebel when instead of
the terror that he thought that he had brought he found only a gentle
contempt and the opinion that he was tired and needed a holiday?
Somewhere, in the back attics of his brain, something was telling him
that this was not quite so simple as it appeared—that this old man in
his dark room was playing as elaborate a game as did ever Philip II in
the dark recesses of his palace at Madrid. And he saw, \ although his
head was buzzing, that there was, in that plan, good wisdom of a kind.
To have Perrin back again, in the chains of the old familiar authority,
was to have Perrin silenced, humbled—finally quieted. But how was he to
battle with these things? They were too clever for him; he knew that the
accumulated years of tradition behind him, the heaping together of those
many, many times when he had knocked on that study door, the solemn
consciousness of the obsequious attentions that he had so often paid to
that white beard, these things rose and defeated him—defeated him on the
last occasion that the chances of battle were to be offered him.
Yet he tried to say something.
He spoke in a tired, passionless voice.
“I had reason,” he said slowly, “for what I did. I meant what I said and
I mean it now. You have made this place hateful to all of us and I
want to hand in my resignation now. I had hoped that what I did this
afternoon might have brought matters to a head, might have helped us all
to act together as a body. But they 're jealous of me—if anyone else had
done it—”
His head dropped—his voice ceased. Then he repeated, drearily, “I want
to hand in my resignation.”
The clock ticked on solemnly. At last Moy-Thompson spoke, very gently
and a little sadly:
“I am sorry, extremely sorry, if, after all these years you feel that I
have acted unjustly towards you, but I hope that you will not think me
unfriendly—my last wish is to appear in any way unfriendly—if I say that
this opinion of yours—a little hurriedly assumed, perhaps—owes something
to the mental fatigue to which I have already alluded. All I beg of you
is to wait before you hand in your resignation, to wait until you are
stronger both in mind and body. I think I may say that the governors
will only too readily allow you a holiday during next term—when the
summertime is with us you will return alert and fresh in body and mind.”
Tick—tick—tick went the clock—“Here's a good offer—Here's a good offer.”
“I wish to hand in my resignation,” said Mr. Perrin.
“Of course if you will, you will. I can only say that we shall all be
genuinely sorry. Let me, at any rate, implore you to wait before making
your decision. In a few weeks' time perhaps—”
“I meant every word that I said this afternoon. This place is
scandalous—scandalous—”
“I regret that you feel that. I'm extremely sorry that you feel about it
as you do. But at least let me beg you to wait for a few weeks. Write to
me. Write to the governors—write to anyone you please. But wait—let me
urge you to wait.”
Mr. Moy-Thompson's hand was laid upon Perrin's knee. Again there was
silence. Then at last:
“Very well. What does it matter? I will wait. I haven't the strength to
break with anything. I'm no use—no good.” He got to his feet and then
suddenly broke out:
“But I tell you, I'm right. You 're too clever for me, but I'm right.
What I've said is true, it's all true. You 're a devil. You've had us
all at your mercy for years and years. You've worked us against one
another until you've rubbed all our courage and finer pieces off us and
you 're pleased—you 're pleased. You've had a fine life of it—you, a
God's parson—and you've made money and you've broken hearts and you've
eaten and drunk—and you 're too clever for us, but there's hell for you
somewhere. I see it and I know it.”
He broke away and burst stumbling from the room.
It may be that for once the man whom he left heard the sound of some
judgment in his ears, for he stood, long after every stir in the world
about him had passed away, staring, without movement and afraid. III.
But Perrin had no exultation in him; it was not of Moy-Thompson he was
thinking. The last stones of his fortress had been removed from his
defenses and he stood utterly naked to the world.
He did not attempt now to gather his resources about him. He cared no
more for any face that he might present to the world. He had reached the
heart of his kingdom and he saw that he was no good—no good at all—an
utterly useless man.
He had not even the pluck to defy Moy-Thompson, to fling his resignation
in his face. He was no good.
He was very cold when he reached his room, and as he pushed back the
door he saw Traill. Traill was standing in the middle of the room,
looking very shy.
Perrin was not glad or sorry to see him. He had no feeling about him at
all.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening.”
“Won't you sit down?”
“No, thank you. I only came in for a moment.”
“Oh, all right. What is it?”
“Oh! Only I wanted to tell you—that—well—oh, that I thought you were
awfully plucky this afternoon.”
“Oh! Thank you. It wasn't plucky really—it was a very foolish thing to
do.”
“No—really—the other fellows did n't understand—”
“Oh, yes! They understood very well.”
Traill paused. He obviously hated the whole affair but was determined to
go through with it.
“Well, I say, I'm leaving to-morrow, you know—not coming back—and I
thought that it would be a pity if we parted—well, sick with each other.
What do you say? We've had one or two turn-ups, but we 're friends, are
n't we?”
“Of course.”
“Shake hands, will you?”
They shook hands.
“Right you are. Look Isabel and me up in town one day, won't you? Always
awfully pleased. Well, I must be going.”
And, with a sigh of relief, Traill moved away.
But what did the boy know, what could the boy know, of the man's utter
despair as he sat there through the night? Traill went out to his life.
“He had made it up with the chap,” but Perrin, in the dark, was looking,
with staring eyes, at Himself. At last, that gray figure that had
haunted him so closely during these weeks was with him face to face.
And, with the coming dawn, he knew what it was that he would do.