A RISING STAR
In the days of his early youth Henry Hope had appeared to those about
him to be an old, old man dressed in an Eton suit. His large rimmed
spectacles had lent him the air of a scholastic genius, and he was, by
habit, pitifully pedantic. In addition he was dignified, and
self-reliant to a fault, and he had no ability of any kind at games. But
at least his heart was in the right place. More than once his meditative
resource had helped Terence and Rouse out of a sad scrape, and
accordingly he was their beloved friend.
In the course of the last few years he had been growing up—lengthways,
that is to say—and Henry Hope had changed a little from the Henry Hope
of old. In the atmosphere of Harley he had grown rather less of a hermit
and rather more of a boy. He had opened out. He was still totally devoid
of a sense of humour, and he still used grave words both in season and
out, but he had become, in one sense at least, human. He was a devotee
of the cinema. Also he had decided what he was going to be. He was going
to be an actor in film plays. He knew one such actor already, and it
seemed to him that this would provide him with an effective introduction
into the right clique when the time came. Toby Nicholson was the actor.
At one period of his life Toby had turned an honest penny by risking his
life before the camera on selected days, and though this was, for
obvious reasons, not the line of business in which Henry proposed to
make his mark, it was at all events good to feel that he was not totally
unacquainted with the way things were done.
Henry, as a matter of fact, was going to be one of those men to whom the
ideal way of getting into a room is by way of the skylight, and the
ideal way of getting out is through the window (though not, of course,
by being pushed through).
It was conceivable that on occasion Henry might consent to act the part
of a detective. Generally speaking, however, he would be the man who
delays the play all the way through by persistently getting into
predicaments through sheer stupidity merely for the sake of showing how
to get out of them again.
He would be a man of rapid movement; he would look always to right and
left before moving to his front; he would look all round a room before
observing a prostrate body at his feet; he would invariably get his eye
caught on a keyhole before entering a room. He would point out the way
to a friend less keen of vision than he before walking down a long
straight road; and at times he would be seen swaying against a wall with
half-closed eyes whilst those who had stolen his all made their escape
in their own time through an old-world garden, stopping to pick flowers
as they went.
Above all there would be one dramatic performance which would constitute
his star part. It would consist in a series of scenes turned rapidly
upon the reel, each displaying a long wide road, and down these ways
Henry would be featured running as never man ran before. His arms would
be going like pistons. He would have lost his hat. (This, however, he
would find again in time to doff it as indicating that somebody was
dead.) Ever and again he would appear to be exhausted. To the lay mind
it would seem impossible for any living man to maintain such a
consistent speed down all those different roads. Nevertheless Henry
would do it. He would do it on different days, of course, but that would
not be realised; and he would, moreover, be running to save a soul. This
would be known to the audience, who would cheer his attractive likeness
every time it appeared at the far end of another road. He conceived that
the energy with which he would run would immediately lift him into the
front rank of famous players. He had once had a nightmare in which he
had slipped up and fallen on the back of his neck whilst at the top of
his speed, thus leading the audience to suppose that his performance was
a comic one ... and once he had dreamt that owing to a slight stitch he
had not been able to run up to form and had arrived twenty-five minutes
too late to effect the rescue, for which he had been kicked by the man
who had been turning the film all the time in expectation of his
arrival; but he had never mentioned these incidents to anyone at all.
He practised a good deal, and it may almost be said that throughout the
period covered by this tale he lived under the perpetual hallucination
that all his movements were recorded by a camera for reproduction before
a gaping audience.
He was under this impression when he shepherded Bobbie Carr and his own
close friend, Hallowell, out of the new study. He made the movement a
masterpiece of play without words, and when they were safely out of
earshot in the corridor he drew himself up with a touch of
characteristic dignity and spoke his only sentence. He did not believe
in speaking any more than was really necessary at these times—no more,
in fact, than it would be necessary for a film to speak, and always in
the same crisp manner in which the film habitually does speak.
His voice was deep down in his boots.
“Something amiss,” said he. Then he was done.
As a matter of fact even this was not essential. If, after all his
painstaking by-play, those present had still not tumbled to the fact
that something was amiss, nothing would have ever made them understand.
In reality they had both understood long ago and were now only hanging
about in case there was any more of Henry’s performance to come, which,
by going, they would miss.
Henry, however, had finished for the moment, so Bobbie Carr sighed and
turned away.
“I’d better go and find Coles,” said he.
Hallowell looked at him.
“It’s a pity you’ve got to fag for Coles. Still, it may not be for long.
How old are you—about fifteen, aren’t you? You’ll soon be done with
fagging.”
There was silence for a moment. Carr could still not make up his mind
whether to admit that he knew quite a lot about Coles already, and
whilst he waited, half turning away, Henry drew near. He had had a rough
term of fagging himself when he had first entered Harley, and he guessed
what Carr must feel like with so many expressions of bad will towards
Coles coming to his notice in such a short space of time. He reached out
a hand and tapped the boy kindly on the shoulder, then he peered at him
with an old-fashioned sincerity over the tops of his glasses and spoke
in a slow and sepulchral tone.
“He’s in the First Fifteen,” said he. “But with us he cuts no ice.” He
paused and nodded his head impressively. “Say, kid,” he added, “we’re
wise to that guy.”
Such words if spoken in church by a venerable bishop would, one
supposes, sound odd. Spoken by Henry they sounded more than odd. They
sounded rotten. Trying to speak American slang was about the most inept
thing Henry did. The result was not only incongruous, it went absolutely
flat. Without having heard him it would be impossible to imagine how
dull those crisp words really sounded. He did not even speak them
through his nose. It was awful.
Nevertheless Bobbie Carr was comforted. There was something in Henry
that inspired trust. There always had been. And in that moment Bobbie
Carr decided that he liked him very much.
“I’ll come along with you,” said Henry. “I know something about Coles
and I can put you up to some of his habits. It may be a help to you. He
may not be in just now, and if he doesn’t want you we can go and have
another look at our new study before it’s too late.”
“I’ll clear off then,” said Hallowell. “I’ve not done my prep. properly
yet. See you later.”
He offered them a cheery gesture of farewell, to which Henry, for his
part, responded by looking at him gravely over the tops of his
spectacles as if he were some form of peculiar insect.
Then he set off with Bobbie Carr, and as he went he spoke in a deep,
gruff voice of Coles and the kind of things he did.
“Any time you find yourself up against him,” said he, “you come and tell
me. Don’t you go doing half the things he’ll want you to. He goes in for
betting, and he smokes and drinks and borrows money. He’ll want you to
fall in with his ideas and help him out of holes. Don’t you do it. I
notice Coles a good deal. I see without being seen. That’s rather a gift
I have got. And if I find that you’re afraid to refuse the things he
asks you to do I shall be disappointed in you, and then perhaps when you
really want my help one day I shan’t be inclined to give it. You come to
me. I can’t punch his head myself but I’m friendly with some who can. In
fact one of my best chums here is the captain of Rugby football.” He
wound up on a note of distinct self-congratulation. “Here,” he added,
“this is his place. You knock on his door and go in. Explain who you are
and see if he wants to speak to you. I’ll wait out here.”
Bobbie went to the door and knocked. He was a lithe youngster, and even
Henry could not help noticing the easy grace of his movements. For a
moment he stood there listening. There was no answer. He knocked again.
“Go in,” said Henry solemnly. “He isn’t there.”
Bobbie opened the door and looked inside. It was perfectly true. The
room was empty. Henry moved from his position against the wall and came
up behind him.
“While there’s nobody here, then,” said he, “I’ll show you where he
keeps his things. Maddock used to have this study and I was Maddock’s
fag. The teapot’s in that cupboard there. This is where he puts anything
he’s got to eat, and I expect his footer kit’s in that box.”
The door was suddenly kicked sideways and a heavy step sounded behind
him.
“Now then,” said Coles. “What are you doing in my study? What do you
mean by crawling in here? Are you looking for something to pinch?”
Henry turned and glared at him with concentrated fury. Coles took him by
the collar.
“You get out,” said he.
Then he lifted a leg and planted a boot so severely behind Henry that he
shot foolishly forward and cannoned into the door. He turned and seemed
about to speak. Coles gave him no opportunity at all. He lifted his foot
again, and this time the force of its drive sent Henry clean out of the
room with one bounce and dropped him against the wall on the far side of
the corridor. Coles was one of the best dropkicks in the school. Then he
slammed the door and turned upon Carr.
And the thing that troubled Henry most was not the pain or the
suddenness of those blows behind him, but the particularly stupid way in
which he had made his exit from the stage.
Coles stared at Carr for a few moments thoughtfully, then he moved to
his chair and, sitting down, planted his feet upon the table.
“Well?” said he. “I suppose you’ve come to report?”
“I thought I’d see if you wanted anything.”
“There is something I don’t want,” said Coles, “and that’s your friends.
I take a pride in my fag. I never expect to have to call for you twice,
and when I do call for you I don’t want all the riff-raff of the school
trotting in behind you like the tail of a crocodile. If you’re palling
up with that fellow Hope you’d better drop him. He makes me feel ill.
Whenever I see that fellow I want to stamp him into the carpet, and if I
see you about together it’ll make me angry with you, and then you won’t
be happy.”
Carr said nothing at all. He just looked at him straightly.
“Do you know,” asked Coles, “why you’ve been made my fag?”
“No,” said Bobbie.
“It’s because I asked for you. And do you know why I asked for you?”
“No.”
“It’s because I’m said to be rather a difficult man to fag for. Young
fellows like you get a bit tired of me. I want a good deal done and I
expect my fag to be absolutely trustworthy. If I tell you a thing in
confidence and I find you split, I simply hit you on the top of the head
with a book, and your head sings for twenty-four hours. I’ve an idea,
though, that I shan’t need to hit you much. That’s why I managed to get
you allotted to me. I think you’ll quite like to fag for me—you’ll know
that if ever you get to know a secret of mine I’ve got a secret of
yours, and that’ll keep you quiet, won’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’re ashamed of your father, aren’t you?”
“Ashamed of him?” said Bobbie hotly. “No, I’m not.”
“But you say that you don’t want anyone here to know how he makes his
living.”
“I promised I wouldn’t say, that’s all. There’s a reason.”
“Precisely,” answered Coles. “And I’m the only one that knows.” He made
an expressive gesture. “You see what I mean?”
“I suppose you mean you’ll tell.”
“I mean that that would be less trouble than hitting you on the head
with a book and considerably more effective.”
Bobbie’s face was expressionless.
“That threat,” said Coles frankly, “starts from to-day. Now we
understand one another.” He looked at the boy fixedly. “You can go,”
said he. “You come in and see me to-morrow in the luncheon hour.”
* * * * *
“Well,” said Henry, when Bobbie bumped into him standing proudly round a
corner of the corridor, “what did he say?”
Bobbie shrugged his shoulders.
“Nothing much. I’ve got to go and see him again to-morrow.”
Henry appeared to be deep in thought. At last he lifted his head and
looked at Bobbie pertly over the tops of his spectacles.
“Did you notice him try to kick me?”
Bobbie’s behaviour was straightway that of a perfect gentleman. He
glanced at Henry politely.
“Yes,” he answered. “He didn’t get you, did he?”
An immediate change came over Henry. His lips slowly parted in ecstasy.
He spoke no word. He looked at the new boy instead with the grateful
light of intense relief shining from his eyes, and from that moment
their friendship was finally cemented.