A LOOKING-GLASS, A SILVER MATCH-BOX, A GLASS OF WHISKY, AND--VOX POPULI
I
Peter, thirteen to sixteen!--and left, so it appears, very much the
same, as far as actual possessions go, at the end of it as at the
poverty-struck commencement. Friendship, Honour, Glory--how these
things came and went with him during these years might have a book to
themselves were it not that our business is with a wider stage and
more lasting issues--and there is but little room for a full-fledged
chronicle. Though Dawson's--and to take the history of Miss Gill
only--of her love affair with the curate, of her final desperate
appeal to him and of his ultimate confession that he was married
already--provides a story quite sufficient for three excellent volumes.
Or there is the history of Benbow, that bucolic gentleman into whose
study we led Peter a chapter or two ago, Head for this year or two of
Dawson's--soon to be head of nothing but the dung-heap and there to crow
only dismally--with a childlike Mrs. Benbow, led unwittingly to Dawson's
as a lamb to the slaughter-house--later to flee, crying, back to her
hearth and home, her life smashed to the tiniest pieces and no brain
nor strength to put it together again. Or there is the natural and
interesting progression, on the part of any child, behind whose back
those iron gates of Dawson's have swung, from innocence to knowledge,
from knowledge to practice, from practice to miserable Submission,
Concealment, and a merry prospective Hell--this is a diverting study
with which it would be easy to fill these pages....
But the theme is Peter's education, and Dawson's is only an incident to
that history--an incident that may be taken by the percipient reader,
for a most admirable Symbol--even an early rehearsal of a Comedy
entitled “How to Learn to be a Man, or The World as a Prancing
Ground.”...
But with Peter, if you take him from that first asking Mrs. Trussit
(swinging his short legs from the table and diving into the mixed
biscuit tin). “Is it, Mrs. Trussit, like David Copperfield?”... to his
meeting of her again, he still rather short-legged but no longer caring
over much for mixed biscuits, in his sixteenth year, with Dawson's over
and done with--“No, Mrs. Trussit, not in the least like,” and grimly
said in addition, the changes, alterations and general growing-up
Development may be said to be inside him rather than out, and there they
are vital enough.
With those three and a half years it is a case of Things sticking out,
like hillocks in a flat country, and it is retrospection rather than
impressions at the time that show what mattered and what did not. But,
on the whole, the vital things at Dawson's are pretty plain to the eye
and must be squeezed into a chapter as best they can.
Treliss, as it appeared in the holidays, seemed to Peter to change very
little. His relations with his father were curiously passive during this
time, and suggested, in their hint of future developments, something
ominous and uneasy. They scarcely ever spoke to one another, and it
was Peter's object to avoid the house as often as possible, but in his
father's silence now (Peter himself being older and intuitively sharper
as to the reason of things) he saw active dislike, and even, at times,
a suggested fear. Outwardly they--his father, his grandfather, his
aunt, Mrs. Trussit--had changed not at all; his grandfather the same
old creature of grey hairs and cushions and rugs, his father broad and
square and white in the face with his black hair carefully brushed, his
aunt with her mittens and trembling hands and silly voice, Mrs. Trussit
with her black silk gown and stout prosperous face--Oh! they were all
there, but he fancied--and this might easily be imagination--that they,
like the portraits of the old Westcotts about the walls, watched him,
as he grew, knowing that ever, as the months passed, the day came nearer
when father and son must come to terms. And beyond this he had, even
at this early time, a consciousness that it was round his mother's room
that the whole matter hung--his mother whom he saw once or twice a week
for a very little time in the morning, when that old terror of the white
silent room would creep upon him and hold him tongue-tied.
And yet, with it all, he knew, as every holiday came, more clearly,
that again and again they, his mother and himself, were on the verge of
speech or action. He could see it in her eyes, her beautiful grey eyes
that moved him so curiously. There were days when he was on the edge
of a rush of questions, and then something held him back--perhaps the
unconscious certainty that his mother's answers would precipitate his
relations with his father--and he was not, as yet, ready.
Anyhow a grim place, Scaw House, grimmer with every return to it, and
not a brightly coloured interlude to Dawson's, grim enough in its own
conditions. The silence that was gradually growing with Peter--the fixed
assurance, whether at home or at school, that life was easier if one
said nothing--might have found an outlet in Stephen's company, but here
again there was no cheerful chronicle.
Each holiday showed Peter less of Stephen than the last had done, and
he was afraid to ask himself why this was. Perhaps in reality he did
not know, but at any rate he was sure that the change was in Stephen. He
cared for Stephen as devotedly as ever, and, indeed, in that perhaps he
needed him more than ever and saw him so little, his affection was even
stronger than it had been. But Stephen had changed, not, Peter knew,
in any affection towards himself, but in his own habits and person.
Burstead--his old enemy--had taken a farm near his own farm, in order,
so they said at The Bending Mule, that he might flaunt Mrs. Burstead
(once Stephen's sweetheart) in Stephen's face.
They also said that Burstead beat his wife and ill-used her horribly,
and that she would give all her soul now that she was Stephen Brant's
wife, but that she was a weak, silly young woman, poor thing. They said
that Stephen knew all this, and that he could hear her crying at nights,
and that it was sending him off his head--and that he was drinking. And
they shook their heads, down at The Bending Mule, and foreboded ill.
Moreover, that old lady, Mrs. Brant, had died during Peter's first
year at Dawson's, and Stephen was alone now. He had changed in his
appearance, his beard tangled and untidy, his clothes unbrushed and his
eyes wild and bloodshot, and once Peter had ventured up to Stephen's
farm and had climbed the stairs and had opened the door and had seen
Stephen (although it was early evening) sitting all naked on his bed,
very drunk and shouting wildly--and he had not recognised Peter. But the
boy knew when he met him again, sober this time, by the sad look in
his eyes, that Stephen must go his way alone now, lead him where it
would.... A boy of fifteen could not help.
And so those holidays were more and more lonely, as the days passed and
Peter's heart was very heavy. He did not go often to The Bending Mule
now because Stephen was not there. He went once or twice to Zachary
Tan's shop, but he did not see Mr. Zanti again nor any one who spoke
of London. He had not, however, forgotten Mr. Zanti's talk of
looking-glasses. As he grew and his mind distinguished more clearly
between fact and fancy, he saw that it was foolish to suppose that
one saw anything in looking-glasses but the immediate view. Tables and
chairs, walls and windows, dust and fire-places, there was the furniture
of a looking-glass. Nevertheless during his first year at school he had,
on occasions, climbed to his dormitory, seen that he was alone and
then gazed into his glass and thought of London ... London in his
young brain, being a place of romantic fog, pantomime, oranges, fat,
chivalrous old gentlemen, Queen Victoria and Punch and Judy. Nothing
had happened--of course nothing had happened--it was only very cold and
unpleasant up there all alone, and, at the end of it, a silly thing to
do.
And then one night something did happen. He woke suddenly and heard in
the distance beyond the deep breathing of twenty-four sleepers, a clock
strike three. He turned and lay on his back; he was very sleepy and
he did not know why he had wakened. The long high room was dark, but
directly opposite him beyond the end of his bed, the light seemed to
shine full on to the face of his looking-glass. As he sat up in bed and
looked at it seemed to stand out like a sheet of silver.
He gripped the sides of the bed and stared. He rubbed his eyes. He could
see no reflection in the glass at all but only this shining expanse, and
then, as he looked at it, that too seemed to pass away, and in its place
at first confusedly, like smoke across the face of the glass, and then,
settling into shape and form, there appeared the interior of a room--a
small low-roofed dark room. There was a large fire burning, and in front
of it, kneeling on the floor, with their backs to Peter, were two
men, and they were thrusting papers into the fire. The glass seemed to
stretch and broaden out so that the whole of the room was visible, and
suddenly Peter saw a little window high in the top of the wall, and
behind that window was a face that watched the two men.
He wanted to warn them--he suddenly cried out aloud “Look out!” and
with that he was wide awake and saw that his glass could be only dimly
discerned in the grey of the advancing morning--and yet he had heard
that clock strike three!... So much for confusing dreams, and so vivid
was it that in the morning he remembered the face at the window and knew
that he would recognise it again if he saw it.
II
But out of the three years there stand his relations with Cards and
young Galleon, a symbol of so much that was to come to him later. As
he grew in position in the school Cards saw him continually. Cards
undoubtedly admired his stocky, determined strength, his grey eyes, his
brusque speech, his ability at games. He did not pretend also that he
was not flattered by Peter's attentions. Curiously, for so young a boy,
he had a satirical irony that showed him the world very much in the
light that he was always afterwards to see it. To Cards the world was
a show, a Vanity Fair--a place where manner, _savoir-faire_, dignity,
humour and ease, mattered everything; he saw also that there was nothing
by which people are so easily deceived.
Peter had none of these things; he would always be rough, he would never
be elegant, and afterwards, in life, Cards did not suppose that he would
see very much of Peter, their lives would be along different paths; but
now, more genuinely perhaps than ever again, Cards was to admire that
honest bedrock of feeling, of sentiment, of criticism, of love and
anger, that gave Peter his immense value.
“There is a fellow here,” wrote Cards to his mother, “whom I like very
much. He's got a most awful lot of stuff in him although he doesn't say
much and he looks like nothing on earth sometimes. He's very good
at football, although he's only been here a year. His name is
Westcott--Peter Westcott. I expect I'll bring him back one holiday.”
But, of course, he never did. Peter, when it came to actuality, wouldn't
look right at home. It was during Peter's second year that these things
were happening, and, all this time, Peter was climbing slowly to a very
real popularity. Cards was leaving at the end of this second year--had
he stayed until the end of the third his superficialities would have
been most severely tested.
To him Peter gave all that whole-hearted love and devotion that only
Stephen had known before. He gave it with a very considerable sense
of humour and with no sentiment at all. He saw Cards quite clearly, he
watched his poses and his elaborate pretences, and he laughed at him
sometimes and called him names.
Cards' pride was, on several occasions, distinctly hurt by this
laughter, but his certain conviction of his own superiority always
comforted him. Nor was Peter ever sentimental in his attitude. He never
told Cards that he cared for him, and he even hung back a little when
Cards was in a demonstrative mood and wanted to be told that he was
“wonderful.” Cards sometimes wondered whether Peter cared for him at
all and whether he wasn't really fonder of that “stupid ass Galleon” who
never had a word to say for himself. Peter's grey eyes would have told
Cards a great deal if he had cared to examine them, but he did not know
anything about eyes. Peter noticed, a little against his will, that
as he advanced up the school so Cards cared increasingly about him.
He grasped this discovery philosophically; after all, there were many
fellows who took their colour from the world's opinion, and it was
natural enough that they should. He himself regarded his growing
popularity as a thing of no importance whatever; it did not touch him
anywhere at all because he despised and hated the place. “When the time
does come,” he said once to Cards, “and one is allowed to do things,
I'll stop a lot of this filth.”
“You'll have your work cut out,” Cards told him. “What does it all
matter to us? Let 'em wallow--and they'll only hate you.”
Cards added this because he knew that Peter had a curious passion for
being liked. Cards wanted to be admired, but to be liked!... what was
the gain? But that second year was, in spite of it all, the best
time that Peter had ever had. There was warmth of a kind in their
appreciation of him. He was only fifteen and small for his age, but his
uncompromising attitude about things, his silence, his football, gave
him a surprising importance--but even now it was respect rather than
popularity. He was growing more like a bull-dog than ever, his hair was
stiff and short, rather shaggy eyebrows, a square jaw, his short legs
rather far apart, a broad back and thick strong arms.
Now that Stephen had slipped so sadly into the background he built up
his life about Cards. He put everything into that room--not the old room
that had held Stephen, but a new shining place that gained some added
brilliance from the fact that its guest realised so little the honour
that was done him. He would lie awake at night and think about Cards, of
the things that he would do for him, of the way that he would serve him,
of the guardian that he would be.
And then, as that summer term, at the end of the second year, wore on
the pain of Cards' departure grew daily more terrible. He didn't know,
as the days advanced, how he would be able to bear that place without
Cards. There would be no life, no interest, and all the disorganisation,
the immorality, the cruelty would oppress him as they had never
oppressed him before. Besides next year he would be a person of
some importance--he would probably be Captain of the Football and a
Monitor...everything would be terribly hard. Of course there was old
Bobby Galleon, who was a very good chap and really fond of Peter, but
there was no excitement about _that_ relationship. Bobby was quite ready
to play servant to Peter's master, and Peter could never respect any one
very much who did that. Beside Cards, so brilliant, so handsome, with
such an “air,” old Bobby really didn't come off very well.
Bobby also at times was inclined to be a little sentimental. He used
to ask Peter whether he liked him--whether he would miss him if he
died--and he used to tell Peter that he would very gladly die for him.
There were things that one didn't--if one had self-respect--say.
That year the summer was of a blazing heat. Every morning saw a sky
of steely blue, the corn stood like a golden band about the hills, and
little clouds like the softest feathers were blown by the Gods about the
world. A mist clung about the distant hills and clothed them in purple
grey. As the term grew to its close Peter felt that the world was a
prison of coloured steel, and that Dawson's was a true Hell...he would
escape from it with Cards. And then when he saw that such an escape
would be running away and a confession of defeat--he turned back and
held his will in command.
Cards looked upon his approaching departure as a great deliverance.
He was to be a man immediately; not for him that absurdly dilatory
condition of pimples and hobbledehoy boots that mark a transition
period. Dawson's had been the most insignificant sojourn in the tent
of the enemy, and the world, it was implied, had lamented his enforced
absence. But, as the end of term flung its shadows in front of it in the
form of examinations, and that especial quality of excited expectancy
hovering about the corridors, Cards felt, for the first time in his
existence, a genuine emotion. He minded, curiously, leaving Peter. He
felt, although in this he wrongly anticipated the gods, that he would
never see him again, and he calculated perhaps at the little piece of
real affection and friendship that stood out from the Continental Tour
that he wished Life to be, like a palm tree on the limitless desert. And
yet it was characteristic of them both that on the last day when, seated
under a hedge at the top of the playing fields, the school buildings
a grey mist below them and the air tensely rigid with heat, they said
good-bye to one another, it was Cards who found all the words.
Peter had nothing to say at all; he only clutched at tufts of grass,
lugged them from the earth and flung them before him. But Cards, as
usual, rose to the occasion.
“You know, Peter, it's been most splendid knowing you here. I don't
think I'd ever have got through Dawson's if it hadn't been for you. It's
a hell of a place and I suppose if the mater hadn't been abroad so much
I should never have stayed on. But it's no use making a fuss. Besides,
it's only for a little while--one will have forgotten all about it in a
year's time.”
Peter smiled. “You will, I shan't.”
“Why, of course you will. And you must come and stay with us often. My
mother's most awfully anxious to know you. Won't it be splendid going
out to join her in Italy? It'll be a bit hot this time of year I
expect.”
Peter seemed to struggle with his words. “I say--Cards--you
won't--altogether--forget me?”
“Forget you! Why, good Lord, I'll be always writing. I'll have such lots
to tell you. I've never liked any one in all my life (this said with a
great sense of age) as I've liked you!”
He stood up and fumbled in his coat. Peter always remembered him, his
dark slim body against the sky, his hair tumbled about his forehead, the
grace and ease with which his body was balanced, the trick that he had
of swaying a little from the hips. He felt in his pocket.
“I say--I've got something for you. I bought it down in the town the
other day and I made them put your name on it.” He produced it, wrapped
in tissue paper, out of his pocket, and Peter took it without a word. It
was a silver match-box with “Peter Westcott from his friend Cardillac,”
and the month and the year printed on it.
“Thanks most awfully,” Peter said gruffly. “Jolly decent of you.
Good-bye old man.”
They shook hands and avoided each other's eyes, and Cardillac had a
sudden desire to fling the Grand Tour and the rest of it to the dogs and
to come back for another year to Dawson's.
“Well, I must get back, got to be in library at four,” he said.
“I'm going to stop here a bit,” said Peter.
He watched Cards walk slowly down the hill and then he flung himself on
his face and pursued with a vacant eye the efforts of an ant to climb a
swaying blade of grass ... he was there for a long time.
III
And so he entered into his third year at Dawson's with a dogged
determination to get through with it as well as possible and not to miss
Cards more than he could help. He did, as an actual fact, miss Cards
terribly. There were so many places, so many things that were connected
with him, but he found, as a kind of reward, that Bobby Galleon was
more of a friend than before. Now that Cards had departed Galleon came
a little out of his shell. He anticipated, obviously with very
considerable enjoyment, that year when he would have Peter all to
himself. Bobby Galleon's virtue was, at any rate, that one was not
conscious of him, and during the time of Peter's popularity he was
useful without being in the very least evident. When that year was
over and he had seen the last shining twinkle of Cards' charms and
fascinations he looked at Peter a little wistfully, “Peter, old man,
next year will be topping....” and Peter, the pleasant warmth of
popularity about him, felt that there was a great deal to be said for
Galleon after all.
* * * * *
But with the first week of that third year trouble began. Things lifted
between the terms, into so different an air; at the end of the summer
with Peter's authority in prospect and his splendid popularity (confined
by no jailer-like insistence on rules) around him that immediate year
seemed simple enough. But in the holidays that preceded the autumn
term something had occurred; Peter returned in the mists and damp of
September with every eye upon him. Although only fifteen and a half he
was a Monitor and Captain of the Football ... far too young for both
these posts, with fellows of a great size and a greater age in the
school, but Barbour (his nose providing, daily, a more lively guide to
his festal evenings) was seized by Peter's silence and imperturbability
in the midst of danger, “That kid's got guts” (this a vinous confidence
amongst friends) “and will pull the place up--gettin' a bit slack, yer
know--Young? Lord bless yer, no--wonderful for his age and Captain of
the Football--that's always popular.”
So upon Peter the burden of “pulling things up” descended. How far Cards
might have helped him here it is difficult to say. Cards had, in his
apparently casual contempt of that school world, a remarkably competent
sense of the direction in which straws were blowing. That most certainly
Peter had not, being inclined, at this stage of things, to go straight
for the thing that he saw and to leave the outskirts of the subject
to look after themselves. And here Bobby Galleon was of no use to him,
being as blundering and near-sighted and simple as a boy could very well
be. Moreover his implicit trust in the perfection of that hero, Peter,
did not help clarity of vision. He was never aware of the causes
of things and only dimly noticed effects, but he was unflinchingly
faithful.
“The primrose path” was, of course, open to Peter. He was popular
enough, at the beginning of that Autumn term, to do anything, and,
had he followed the “closed-eyes” policy of his predecessor, smiling
pleasantly upon all crime and even gently with his own authority
“lending a hand,” all would have been well. There were boys with
strangely simple names, simple for such criminals--Barton, Jerrard,
Watson, West, Underbill--who were old-established hands at their own
especial games, and they saw no reason at all for disturbance. “Young
Westcott had better not come meddling here,” they muttered darkly,
having discerned already a tendency on his part to show disapproval.
Nothing happened during the first term--no concrete incident--but Peter
had stepped, by the end of it, from an exultant popularity to an actual
distrust and suspicion. The football season had not been very successful
and Peter had not the graces and charm of a leader. He distrusted the
revelation of enthusiasm because he was himself so enthusiastic and
his silence was mistaken for coldness. He hated the criminals with the
simple names and showed them that he hated them and they in their turn,
skilfully and with some very genuine humour, persuaded the school that
he cut a very poor figure.
At the absurd concert that closed the Autumn term (Mr. Barbour,
red-nosed and bulging shirt-front, hilariously in the chair) Peter knew
that he had lost his throne. He had Bobby--there was no one else--and in
a sudden bitterness and scorn at the fickle colour of that esteem
that he had valued so highly he almost wished that he were altogether
alone.... Bobby only accentuated things.
Nothing to go home to--nothing to come back to. The Christmas holidays
over he returned to the Easter term with an eager determination to
improve matters.
It was geniality that he lacked: he knew that that was the matter with
him, and he felt a kind of despair about it because he seemed to return
at the end of every holiday from Cornwall with that old conviction in
his head that the easiest way to get through the world was to stand
with your back to the wall and say nothing ... and if these fellows, who
thought him so pleasant last year, thought him pleasant no longer, well,
then he must put up with it. He had not changed--there he was, as ever.
But the Easter term was a chronicle of mistakes. He could not be genial
to people who defied and mocked him; he found, dangerously, that they
could all be afraid of him. When his face was white and his voice very
quiet and his whole body tense like a bow, then they feared him--the
biggest and strongest of those criminals obeyed. He was sixteen now
and he could when he liked rule them all, and gradually, as the term
advanced, he used his strength more and more and was more and more
alone. Days would come when he would hate his loneliness and would rush
out of it with friendly advances and always he would be beaten back into
his reserve again. Had only Cards been there!... But what side would
Cards have taken? Perhaps Peter was fortunate in that the test was not
demanded. Poor Bobby simply did not understand it at all. Peter! the
most splendid fellow in the world! What were they all up to? But that
point of view did not help matters. No other monitor spoke to Peter now
if he could help it, and even the masters, judging that where there was
smoke there must be fire, passed him coldly. That Easter term, in the
late winds and rains of March, closed hideously. The Easter holidays,
although perhaps he did not realise it, were a deliberate backing for
the ordeal that was, he knew, to come.
He faced it on his return almost humorously, prepared, with a
self-consciousness that was unusual in him, for all the worst things,
and it is true enough that they were as bad as they could be. Bobby
Galleon shared in it all, of course, but he had never been a popular
person and he did not miss anything so long as there was Peter. Once he
said, as Cards had said before:
“Leave 'em alone, Peter. After all, we can't do anything. They're too
many for us, and, most important thing of all, they aren't worth it.”
“Not much,” said Peter, “things have got to be different.”
Things were not different. They _were_ too many for him, but he
struggled on. The more open bullying he stopped, and there were other
things that he drove into dark corners. But they remained there--in
those corners. There were so many dark places at Dawson's, and it began
to get on his brain so that he heard whispers and suspicions and marked
the trail of the beast at every minute of the day. He could find nothing
now in the open--they were too clever for him. The Captain of the
Citadel--Ellershaw--was as he knew the worst fellow in the school, but
there was nothing to be done, nothing unless something were caught in
the open. As the term advanced the whispers grew and he felt that there
were plots in the air. He was obeyed, Ellershaw and some of the others
were politer than they had ever been, and for many weeks now there had
been no disturbance--then suddenly the storm broke.
One hot afternoon he was sitting in his study alone, trying to read.
Things seemed to him that day at their very worst, there was no place to
which he might turn. People were playing cricket beyond his window. Some
fly buzzed on his window pane, the sunlight was golden about his room
and little ladders of dust twisted and curved against the glare--the
house was very still. Then suddenly, from a neighbouring study, there
were sounds. At first they did not penetrate his day dream, then they
caught his ear and he put his book down and listened. The sounds were
muffled; there was laughter and then some one cried out.
He knew that it was Jerrard's study and he hated Jerrard more than any
one in the school. The fellow was a huge stupid oaf, low down in the
middle fourth, but the best bowler that the school had; yes, he hated
him. He opened his study door and listened. The passage was deserted,
and, for a moment, there was no sound save some one shouting down in
the cricket field and the buzzing of the fly on the pane. Then he heard
voices from behind Jerrard's door.
“No, I say--Jerrard--don't give me any more--please ... please don't.”
“There I say--hold his mouth open; that's right, pour it down. We'll
have him singing in a moment.”
“Oh I say--” there were sounds of a struggle and then silence again. At
last there began the most horrible laughter that Peter had ever known;
weak, silly, giggling, and little excited cries.
Then Jerrard's voice: “There, that will do; he's merry enough now.”
Peter waited for no more, but strode across the passage and flung open
the door. Some chairs were overturned; Jerrard and a friend, hearing the
door open, had turned round. Leaning against the table, very flushed,
his eyes shining, his hair covered with dust, waving his arms and
singing in a quivering voice, was a small boy, very drunk. A glass and a
whisky bottle were on the table.
“You damned hound!” Peter was trembling from head to foot. “You shall
get kicked out for this.”
Peter closed the door quietly behind him, and went back to his study.
Here at last was the moment for which he had been waiting. Jerrard
should be expelled if he, Peter, died in the attempt. Jerrard was the
school's best bowler; he was immensely popular ... it would, indeed, be
a matter of life and death. On that same evening he called a meeting
of the Monitors; they were bound to meet if one of their number had
anything of sufficient importance to declare, but they came reluctantly
and showed Peter that they resented his action. When they heard what
Peter had to say their attitude was even more mutinous. Jerrard, the
school's best bowler, was their one thought. The end of the term was at
hand, and the great match of the year against Radford, a neighbouring
school, approached. Without Jerrard Dawson's would be hopelessly
defeated. If Barbour heard of the incident Jerrard would be expelled;
Barbour might be reluctant to act, but act he must. They were not, by
an absurd and ancient rule, allowed to punish any grave offence without
reporting it to the head-master. If, therefore, they took any action at
all, it must be reported, Jerrard would be expelled, a boon companion
and the great cricket match of the year, would be lost. And all this
through that interfering prig of a Westcott! Any ordinary fellow would
have shut his eyes to the whole affair. After all what is there to make
a fuss about in having a rag with a kid? What are kids for? Thus the
conclave sourly regarding Peter who watched them in turn, and sat
sternly, ominously militant. They approached him with courtesy;
Ellershaw showed him what this might mean to the school were it
persisted in. After all, Jerrard was, in all probability, sorry enough
... it was a rotten thing to do--he should apologise to them. No, Peter
would have none of it, they must 'act; it must be reported to the Head.
He would, if necessary, report it himself.
Then they turned and cursed him, asking him whom he thought that he was,
warned him about the way that the school would take his interference
when the school knew, advised him for his own good to drop the matter;
Peter was unmoved.
Barbour was informed; Jerrard was expelled--the school was beaten in the
cricket match by an innings.
Then the storm broke. Peter moved, with Bobby Galleon, through a
cloud of enemies. It was a hostility that cut like a knife, silent,
motionless, but so bitter that every boy from Ellershaw to the tiniest
infant at the bottom of the first took it as the _motif_ of his day.
That beast Westcott was the song that rang through the last fortnight.
Bobby Galleon was cowed by it; he did not mind his own ostracism, and
he was proud that he could give practical effect to his devotion for his
friend, but deep down in his loyalty, there was an unconfessed suspicion
as to whether Peter, after all, hadn't been a little unwise and
interfering--what was the good of making all this trouble? He even
wondered whether Peter didn't rather enjoy it?
And Peter, for the first time in his school life, was happy. There
was something after all in being up against all these people. He was a
general fighting against tremendous odds. He would show them next year
that they must obey.
On the last afternoon of the term he sat alone in his study. Bobby was
with the matron, packing. He was conscious, as he sat there, of the
sound of many feet shuffling. There were many whispers beyond his door,
and yet a great silence.
He waited for a little, and then he opened his door and looked out. As
he did so the bell for roll-call rang through the building, and he knew
that it was his roll.
Afternoon roll-call was always taken in the gymnasium, a large empty
room beyond the study passage, and it was the custom for boys to come up
as their name was about to be called and thus to pass on.
But to-day he saw that the whole of the school was gathered there, along
the dusky passage and packed, in a silent motionless throng, into the
gymnasium.
He knew that they were all there with a purpose, and suddenly as he
realised the insult that they intended, that spirit of exultation came
upon him again. Ah! it was worth while, this battle!
They made way in silence as he passed quietly to the other end of the
gymnasium and stood, a little above them, on the steps that led to the
gallery. He started the roll-call with the head of the school and the
sixth form ... there was no answer to any name; only perfect silence and
every eye fixed upon him. For a wild moment he wished to burst out upon
them, to crash their heads together, to hurt--then his self-control
returned. Very quietly and clearly he read through the school list, a
faint smile on his lips. Bobby Galleon was the only boy, out of three
hundred, who answered.
When he had finished he called out as was the custom, “Roll is over,”
then for a brief instant, with the list in his hand, smiling, he faced
them all. Every eye was upon him--Ellershaw, West, Barton smiling
a little, some faces nervous, some excited, all bitterly, intensely
hostile ... and he must return next year!
He came down from the steps and walked very slowly to the door, and then
as his fingers touched the handle there was a sound--a whisper, very
soft and then louder; it grew about his ear like a shot ... the whole
school, motionless as before, was hissing him.
There was no word spoken, and he closed the door behind him.
IV
That same night he walked, before chapel, with Bobby to the top of
the playing fields. The night was dark and heavy, with no moon nor
stars--but there was a cool wind that touched his cheek.
“Well, I've been a pretty good failure, Bobby. You've stuck to me like
a brick. I shall never forget it.... But you know never in all my life
have I been as happy as I was this afternoon. The devils! I'll have 'em
under next year.”
“That's not the way--” Bobby tried timorously to explain.
“Oh, yes, it is.... Anyhow it's my way. I wonder what there is about me
that makes people hate me so.”
“People don't.”
“Yes, they do. At home, here--it's all the same. I'm always having to
fight about something, always coming up against things.”
“I suppose it's your destiny,” said Bobby. “You always say it's to teach
you pluck.”
“That's what an old chap I knew in Cornwall said. But why can't I be let
alone? How I loved that bit last year when the fellows liked me--only
the decent things never last.”
“It'll be all right later,” Bobby answered, thinking that he had never
seen anything finer than the way Peter had taken that afternoon. “In a
way,” he went on, “you fellows are lucky to get a chance of standing
up against that sort of thing; it's damned good practice. Nobody ever
thinks I'm worth while.”
“Well,” said Peter, throwing a clod of dark, scented earth into the
air and losing sight of it in the black wall about him--“Here's to next
year's battle!”