swine from Randall's had the cheek to shove their bags in here, but
when they sloped away to get papers we plugged their stuff into the
guard's van and now they can't find their carriage. You'd better bag a
pew here."
This was fame and ecstasy indeed. Martin hurriedly said good-bye to
his uncle and aunt and made certain of his place in Neave's carriage.
When the train had left the station they settled down to talk and for a
splendid half-hour they refought the battle of the pitchers. Then they
talked theatres and ultimately the more experienced told of amorous
conquests. Martin had been content to listen for the most part and now
he relapsed into complete silence. He supposed there must be something
in this girl business, though as yet he didn't understand. But he was
not unhappy. He sat with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand in
his waistcoat pocket and felt the milled edges of two sovereigns which
his uncle had just given him. Two pounds, forty shillings, four
hundred and eighty pence! He possessed the equivalent of one hundred
and sixty poached eggs or two hundred and forty ham rolls. It was a
ravishing thought.
VII
Scholars, like nations, are happiest when they have no history: judged
by that standard, both Elfrey School and Berney's house must have been
fortunate. Everything ran smoothly and Martin flourished in mind and
body. He not only reached the Upper Sixth in the shortest possible
time, but also played with average success in his house teams. Without
being a brilliant scholar, he always did sound work: without being a
born athlete, he could easily hold his own among boys of his size and
age. Generally speaking, he had no adventures. Beyond a few petty
rows with masters and prefects, such rows as fall inevitably to the lot
of all, be they sinners or saints, he pursued an even course and found
in life a quite tolerable combination of boredom and excitement. His
main interest consisted now, as before, in discoveries.
Religion is always a field for engrossing, if unprofitable,
exploration. Until the time arrived for his confirmation Martin had
adopted the average position of his kind. He had taken everything for
granted, but his acceptance had implied neither strength of faith nor
the application of faith to the phenomena of workaday existence.
During chapel he had chanted the psalms and sung the hymns when the
music or his own mood encouraged him to do so. Hymns like 'Fight the
good fight,' which offered an opportunity for a good, throat-bursting
yell, he had always enjoyed: his young emotions had at times been
touched by the more sentimental tunes and he found 'For all Thy saints'
peculiarly affecting. He was not so impassive as the average Elfreyan
who could easily forget the sermons of the Reverend Frank Adair, the
one master who had the courage to let himself go when he preached and
the ability to gain his effect. Adair could grip Martin and make him
feel a very weak vessel. Foskett delivered an address from time to
time, exhortations, as a rule, on the duties of a gentleman and the
traditions of school life. As he never dealt with concrete instances
or dabbled, as did one or two preachers, in thrilling casuistry of the
study or the cricket field, no one paid much attention to his
high-pitched voice and rapt expression. During the repetition of
prayers Martin's thoughts wandered to secular subjects, prep, and
games, and So-and-so's chances of a cap: and he knew, as he gazed at
the long rows of kneeling figures, that nineteen out of twenty minds
were engaged upon the same topics.
Most boys took confirmation very much as a matter of form, as something
you had done to you at some time or another. Perhaps they prayed a
little longer at night, for it was the custom to say prayers, and the
traditional shoe, had it been flung, would more probably have been
aimed at the shirker than the devotee. But otherwise they were
unaffected. Martin took a deeper interest because he had listened
closely to an address in which there had been almost a definite promise
that the first Communion would bring a gift, a spiritual reality about
which no mistake could be made. He was curious to discover what
exactly this gift was and how it would feel to be filled with the Holy
Ghost. So he awaited with more enthusiasm than most the day of his
strengthening in the Church.
Confirmation stirred him because the bishop spoke warmly and, as
bishops go, sensibly. But first Communion was a disappointment. He
had expected so much, he had looked forward with so tense a curiosity
to the receiving of a priceless and unknown gift, and he had to admit
that he felt exactly as he had felt before. It couldn't be, he
decided, his own faith that was lacking, for he had gone to the
sacrament in perfect confidence about the blessing that was to come,
and he resolved to continue his search for the truth and the help that
it would bring. So for two terms he attended the Communion with fair
regularity. But still nothing happened, the promise seemed to him
unfulfilled, and he came to the conclusion that it was no use going on.
For the future he lay in bed on Sunday mornings and listened to the
faithful washing and groping for their studs. The position of the
sceptic had, after all, its consolations.
In course of the following holidays he discovered among some
paper-covered books of his uncle's a three-penny copy of Blatchford's
_God and My Neighbour_. He read it through almost without a break, for
he had just reached the necessary stage to appreciate it. The short,
stabbing sentences and the obvious good-will of the author made a great
impression upon him, and he was thrilled by the peroration and flaming
appeal for a world set free from kings and priests and all such
evil-doers. He caught the spirit of the book at once and read it aloud
to himself, rejoicing:
"'Rightly or wrongly, I am for reason against dogmas, for evolution
against revolution: for humanity always: for earth, not heaven: for the
holiest trinity of all--the trinity of man, woman, and child.'
"This," he thought, "is literature."
And then the final thunderclap: "'Let the holy have their heaven. I am
a man, and an Infidel. And this is my apology. Besides, gentlemen,
Christianity is not true.'"
Martin saw it all now: Christianity was not true: it was a lie and a
fraud kept alive by priests and bishops with a view to salaries. He
wanted very much to speak to his uncle and question him about science
and the New Testament authorities, but, though they were on very
intimate terms, he dared not approach him on this occasion. The reason
was that he had taken the book from a cupboard usually locked. Martin
had found the key by accident while his uncle was up in town and could
not resist the temptation to look through the hidden literature. So he
put the books away and remained silent.
But when he went back to Elfrey he felt that he could no longer
restrain the gushing fountain of secularism, and he determined to talk
to a Berneyite called Gregson. Martin was sixteen and a member of the
Upper Sixth: Gregson was a year older and in the same form. He was
much less adaptable than Martin, hated all games, and had taken up the
position of school heretic. In the evenings they used to settle the
problem of the universe over cocoa and sardines, and there was nothing
on which they had not touched. Martin had picked up some revolutionary
politics from his uncle and he was delighted to find in Gregson a
disciple of William Morris. At one time they had been joint leaders of
Liberalism in the school debating society (they had one follower in a
house of thirty), but now, to the great joy of the Tories, they turned
to Socialism and lashed their former supporter. Consequently it was
natural for Martin to approach Gregson on the subject of doubt, and to
his great surprise he found that Gregson knew all about it. As a
matter of fact there could have been few more fruitful grounds for the
seed of scepticism than Gregson's soul. Gregson had an acute
hair-splitting brain and an abhorrence of emotion: he came from a
country parsonage, and he had to attend church in the holidays whether
he liked it or not: moreover he had a brother at the varsity who
possessed a great genius for blasphemy and a quantity of rationalist
pamphlets. Gregson took up comparative religion, used long words, and
became very bitter.
"Why didn't you let on that you were an agnostic?" asked Martin.
"Oh, it's no use. They think you're wicked. It's best to wait till
you have escaped from this prison before you open your lips."
"But you might have told me."
"I thought I'd let you find out for yourself. It was bound to happen."
Martin was surprised at Gregson's certainty.
"Bound?" he asked. "Very few people doubt."
"All rational people doubt," said Gregson with decision. "Tell me
this. How can God be all-good and all-powerful and leave misery in the
world?"
Martin had a vague idea that there was an answer to this. "Training, I
suppose," he answered weakly.
"Yes, that's what the bishops say. Good for people to be poor,
strengthens the fibre and all that. And back they slope to their
palaces. But what I want to know is, why this beastly training? If
God was all-powerful, the thing could be done without it and we would
all be angels at once. After all, why should people die of cancer or
inherit filthy diseases?"
Martin didn't see why they should.
"And then there's the Atonement," Gregson continued. "There's a
childish story for you. First, it seems, God made men: then He was
angry because He hadn't made them good enough. Then, just to complete
the muddle, He found it necessary to kill His Son to pay for the sins
of the people whom He might have made perfect if He had wanted to.
That's not good enough, thank you."
It was just the type of sharp, bitter-phrased reasoning to complete the
extinction of Martin's spark of faith. At first Gregson's violent
attitude naturally drove Martin to a modified defence of religion, but
Gregson carried far too many guns when it came to a battle of argument.
He could make great play with his comparative religion, and Martin used
to leave Gregson's study with a wealth of new phrases ringing in his
ears: at last he could think of nothing but solar myths and gods of
dying vegetation. It seemed to him very strange that the world should
continue to pay any attention to the monstrous imposture which the
combined efforts of Blatchford and Gregson had shown Christianity to
be. But his discoveries did not make him unhappy: he had his secular
socialism and, as religion had never formed a vital element in his
life, its loss could involve no pain.
VIII
Martin derived from his study a rich and constant enjoyment. True that
it was a diminutive box of a place: true that in winter he had to
choose between freezing with an open window or enduring the atmosphere
that only hot-water pipes can create. There would be rows too outside,
in the passage, scuffling and ragging and the singing of all the latest
successes. But after the dusty turmoil of the workroom it was a
possession and, though Martin was not at that time the kind of person
to care intensely about his surroundings or little pieces of property,
he took a definite pride in his books and pictures. He was old enough
now to be above actresses: other and greater persons might bedeck their
walls with fair women, but Gregson and he had decided that such things
were only good for the army class. The Upper Sixth, Classical, should
have traditions and its traditions should include the things of art.
Gregson, on the advice of a Cubist cousin, brought back to Elfrey some
modern studies of the nude, but Mr Berney discovered them and after a
close examination came to the conclusion that the objects depicted were
women. Then he thought the matter over and nervously demanded their
removal. This naturally fanned the flame of Gregson's bitterness
against the world of school and led him to hold forth copiously to
Martin, who enjoyed his rich outbursts of invective.
"Poor old Berney," he would say. "I suppose we can't blame him. He
doesn't understand. Ma B. hasn't got further than Matthew Arnold and I
don't suppose either of them ever heard of a chap called Wilde. [Wilde
was tremendously the god of Gregson's rebellious soul.] They'll live
and learn. I suppose some day schools will be reasonable places."
Gregson was not really a prig or a bore, but at times he ran the risk
of combining the parts. The Public School system does just as much
harm by isolating the thinker and driving him into an immature and
self-conscious spirit of opposition as it would if it crushed him
altogether. Gregson did not get on with the prefects. He used to
allude to the Iron Heel of their system, despised their methods of
keeping order, and exposed to Martin the futility of entrusting matters
of conduct to swollen-headed athletes who could only just struggle into
the History Sixth.
"They don't know what they're doing and don't care what they do. If
they see or hear anything they haven't seen or heard before they
trample on it. They all crib in form themselves and go for kids when
they crib."
"That's very British," said Martin, who could still mistake a platitude
for an epigram.
"British or foreign, it's all alike. Just as capital sits on labour
everywhere, so muscle is still on top all over the world. It's worse
at school than anywhere, but it's the Iron Heel all the same."
Martin agreed to these sentiments at the moment but gave little thought
to their bearing. He was less rebellious than Gregson and was on
reasonably good terms with all the present prefects except Heseltine.
Also his pictures had not been banned.
Martin combined with the society of Gregson a strong friendship for a
pleasant but unintellectual person called Rayner. Rayner was robust
and practical and efficient: he took everything for granted, his
education, his prospects, and his religion. He never questioned
anything, not because he was too lazy, but because it never struck him
as a normal thing to do. Naturally Martin had to discriminate
carefully between the topics of conversation with his various friends.
With Rayner he talked of cricket and football, the chances of this man
and the failure of that, the reasons for England's success at
Twickenham and Scotland's failure at Inverleith, the prospects of the
varsities in their different contests. Above all, Rayner was sound
about food. Gregson was too superior to 'brew' extensively, so on
half-holiday afternoons in winter Rayner and Martin used to collaborate
in the production and consumption of food. They were both well off for
pocket-money, and between them they would often devour a dozen or more
sausages, a tin of sardines and a large bunch of bananas, not to
mention the accompaniments of the feast, cocoa and bread and jam.
Martin was a strong eater, but it was Rayner who really achieved the
bulk of the work: together they defeated all rivals and established a
house record. After feeding-time they would lie torpid in a heavenly
frowst reading _Wisden's Annual_ or sixpenny magazines. Gregson
secretly despised Martin for enjoying these plebeian orgies, but he
could not afford to quarrel since that would have meant the loss of his
only audience.
It was into the life of this Martin, the intermediate Martin, who was
neither the servant of Spots nor the commander of servants, that Anstey
rushed in. Anstey was a small clever boy who had climbed to the Lower
Sixth at great speed: he had not only considerable ability, but also
possessed a genius for covering the gaps in his knowledge or reading
and he would talk with Martin about authors he had never read. His
manners and appearance were charming and he played half-back for
Berney's second team with skill and pluck. Without being made
conceited by the influential friendships which he found awaiting him
wherever he turned, he had a quiet manner of self-assertion which
fascinated Martin. And so when Rayner or Gregson came to Martin for a
talk they would find Anstey chatting away with his feet on the table.
Then Rayner would go away hurriedly, for he thought Anstey a frivolous
and unreliable creature, and if ever there was a reliable man at Elfrey
it was Rayner. Gregson's objections to Anstey were based on the
latter's sentimental attachment to the Catholic faith. On first
acquiring a study Anstey had bought 'Peggy' and the usual pictures:
three weeks later he was converted, exchanged 'Peggy' for a Madonna,
and dotted the room with candles.
To Martin, Anstey would talk on any subject, from religious experience,
which he had not undergone, to the beauty of his elder sisters which
was equally fictitious. At times they read together, prose and poetry,
Classics and English, and after reading they would launch out into vast
discussions. In the Christmas holidays Martin went to stay with the
Ansteys in Kensington: he was disappointed in the sisters, who indeed
took very little notice of him, but Cyril Anstey was more than usually
charming. They wandered about London together, went often to the play,
and spent far more money than the Anstey family could afford: but of
course Martin did not know that. It was not, however, until the summer
term that Martin's friendship for Cyril Anstey reached its height; now
at last he discovered how limited and pent up all his school life had
been. He had had no enthusiasms. Religion had no appeal for him, the
ancient literatures had been so fouled by pedantic notes and
introductions that they had not moved him as they should have done, for
games he had only a lukewarm affection. He liked discussing teams and
the chances of teams, but he had never had personal successes in
athletics; while he knew that the correct hitting of a ball might be
one of life's most splendid things, his experience of that pleasure was
too fragmentary to satisfy his appetite. His talks with Gregson had
been enjoyable, for they had given him an opportunity to let himself
go: but life, on the whole, this life at school which was universally
supposed to teem with opportunities, had become monotonous and barren.
One could live without feeling.
But Anstey made a difference. On Sunday afternoons or whenever through
the week they could escape from cricket, they wandered together on the
downs and lay on the short grass watching the white clouds sailing
majestically like galleons in the blue dome above them and listening to
the larks and the charge of the wind. Below them were the school
towers and the green patch of playing-fields and the glittering pool of
water where in summer one bathed: behind them ran the smooth sweep of
the downs, clear-cut against the sunset and firm and strong as when the
Roman came and built his camp upon the brow and threw his road across
the hill, despising these grassy slopes as befitted one who knew the
Apennines. Here were line and colour and wind and a freshening spirit
that was alien to the stuffy town below: here was something to enjoy in
peace, something which made the Georgics real and the world something
more than a place to live in.
And Anstey had brought him to the downs. The average Elfreyan thought
climbing that slippery turf a horrid sweat, connected it with the
compulsory runs of winter, and preferred to lounge in his arid house
yard. Until now Martin had avoided the downs, because it wasn't the
thing to go there: but when he had found the dip to Friar's Hanger and
the great wood of larches beyond, he cursed the game of cricket and
longed to escape from the tyranny of games. He had taken beauty for
granted just as he had taken goodness and truth for granted: somehow
they existed and that was all. Now he found the idea suffusing visible
things and he knew how much he had missed by lounging in Berney's yard.
A new door was opened. It had been opened by Anstey and the light from
within was reflected on the opener, transfiguring for Martin the swift
grace of his movements and giving to the rapid stream of his thoughts a
depth which they really lacked. A dam had burst and Martin had no
longer to seek an outlet for his emotions. Gladly he entered on
strange paths of sentiment, and he no longer deceived himself with the
lie that his friendship with Anstey was comparable to his friendship
for Gregson or Rayner. One afternoon they found a new path and a new
hollow where the young bracken made a couch softer than the bare
hill-side. Here there was no clack of cricket balls, no nets, no
shouting of 'Heads' and terrified ducking. Only the wind whispered in
the bracken and an old sheep grunted in the sun, for the weather was
warm and he should long ago have been sheared.
The two boys lay in silence, pretending to read.
"It's ripping of you to be bothered with me," said Martin suddenly.
"What do you mean?" said Anstey.
"I mean that you aren't my sort. You see things much more quickly than
I do. You don't plod like me."
"I haven't your brains--that's the truth."
"No, it isn't. Of course it isn't." Yet Martin was half-conscious
that he lied. His affection for Anstey had forced him to tell a
needless falsehood in a futile effort to quiet the voice which cried
within him: "He isn't good enough for you." Then he added: "You've
shown me all this."
"I may see things you miss," said Anstey, "but I've no practical
ability, no thoroughness. Anyhow I'm glad if I've given you something
in return for what you have given me."
Martin had bought books for Anstey, Synge at five shillings a volume.
He had been proud of knowing about Synge at school.
"Oh, that was nothing," he answered. But it had meant fewer sardines
and sausages when he fed with Rayner.
"Then we're quits, dear old fool."
"Why old fool?"
"For taking me seriously."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Nobody else does. I amuse them and they like me all right. But I
think you really care----"
"Yes, of course. Honestly, I care."
They lay in silence, looking at one another.
Later on they went headlong down the slopes and assuaged their heat by
bathing in the pool, which was almost deserted. It was still warm
enough to lie on the soft banks so that the setting sun might dry their
bodies.
They were late for house tea.
At this point Heseltine comes into the story.
He was head of Berney's, a fact of which he was most painfully aware.
Though not prominent in games, he was sound in all branches of life:
above all, he was a man with an influence, a force for good, one of
Foskett's darlings. He held strong views on the duty of a prefect and
the possibility of 'feeling the school's moral pulse.' Berney's
objected to his constant attentions: the house preferred to have its
pulse unfelt. Everyone resented Heseltine's new rules and posted
notices and petty interference, but of all Berneyites the most opposed
to Heseltine in spirit and conduct was Anstey.
That night Heseltine asked Martin to see him after prep.
"Oh, I want to have a chat with you," said Heseltine when Martin
arrived. "Just one friend to another."
"Yes," said Martin suspiciously.
"You've been going about a lot with young Anstey," the prefect went on.
"Yes."
"I don't want to seem interfering" (sure sign, Martin knew, that he was
going to interfere), "but I think I ought to warn you against him.
He's not good enough for you. His record isn't a good one."
"He's in the Lower Sixth."
"I know that. He's clever enough. But we've had trouble with him. He
doesn't fit into things: he's dangerous."
Martin wanted to say: "You think everybody dangerous who has more
brains than you." As a matter of fact he said: "Oh?" There was
something formidable about Heseltine.
"Of course," he continued, "one can't be too careful in matters of this
sort. In a community like this sentimental attachments won't do. We
prefects are responsible for the moral health of the school and we've
got to keep our fingers on its pulse...." He prosed away and Martin
regarded the literature he favoured. He read, it seemed, Seton
Merriman and the publications of the Agenda Club. Suddenly he realised
that Heseltine was saying: "I want you to promise me to see less of
him."
Martin flared up at once. "I don't see why," he said angrily.
"I've given my reasons. He's not a fit friend for you."
"Surely that's for me to judge."