work for one or two school prizes, but he knew that he could get a
leaving scholarship without difficulty. Thus he became a more
prominent figure in the house and was, on the whole, much happier than
in the days of reading and thinking. He abandoned Wells the social
theorist for Wells the fantastic romancer and combined _Wisden's
Almanac_ with Arnold Bennett for his literature in prep-time. He knew
now that he couldn't bowl googlies at all: on the house pitches it
depended on the lie of the land which way the ball broke. But he kept
up the fraud for his own amusement, and continued to take the wickets
to which his confidence entitled him.
The school were laying five to one on Randall's, who had far the better
record and were as usual a hard-hitting, level, ugly lot. Berney's won
the toss and only made a hundred and thirty on a good wicket. Martin's
first ball bumped a little and he poked it into slip's hands: Rayner
made twelve and was run out. The runs were made by Martin's small
proteges, who scored by fluky shots over and through the slips. It was
a disgraceful display. Randall's knocked up two hundred and fifty.
Martin was bowling unusually well and consequently never looked like
taking a wicket. The batsmen played forward correctly and stayed for
hours. Even when in despair he tossed up the most tempting
half-volleys, they were content to play him along the ground for one.
Randall's never risked anything when a cup was at stake.
In the second innings Rayner put up a fine century and Martin made a
pleasing thirty: had he resisted the temptation to cut "the
uncuttable," he would have stayed in and served his house better. But
Martin could not play cricket in that spirit. The rest did little this
time and Randall's was left with only eighty to make.
The score stood at fifty for two when Rayner, who was, of course,
captain when he played for the house, put on Martin to bowl.
Spectators were moving to the tuck-shop to drown grief or express
elation. Martin knew that it was all over and sent down, by way of a
change, a fast, straight ball. Randall's captain was expecting
something very different, mistimed it, and was bowled: his successor
scraped nervously at a leg-break and was caught at the wicket. The
next man survived three balls: the last delivery of the over was
monstrous. It was pitched very short and went slowly away to leg: the
batsman hit under it and was taken far out. A gift indeed. The score
was now fifty for five wickets and the tuck-shop began to empty again.
Randall's were not the sort of people one suspected of having nerves.
But to lose three wickets in one over of the last innings is startling,
and Randall's were rattled, despite their stodginess. Martin's second
over was weak in direction and pitiable in length, but he might have
been Barnes for the respect he received. It was another maiden.
Martin knew well enough that if one batsman had the sense to go for his
bowling and treat it according to its merits the match was finished.
He took another wicket with a slow leg-break and then a brawny youth
named Coxwell came in. He had been warned by his frantic housemaster
'to lash at 'em.' He did so and scored three fours in succession.
During Martin's next over Coxwell was at his end. He saw now that the
secret was discovered and that Randall's would knock off their runs
with impunity: he could imagine the gloating joy of Randall's, all the
greater because victory had been in doubt: Berney's would be in the
position of the mouse set free and recaptured. In his anger Martin
bowled an amazing ball. He had really meant to send up a "googly," but
it pitched half-way to the wicket and scarcely left the ground. The
batsman drove it back and Martin, stooping quickly, just touched it
with his left hand: the ball crashed into the wickets. Coxwell, who
was backing-up, was a yard outside the crease. The batsman who might
have won the match had been run out by a gross fluke. "The stars in
their courses," said Martin to Rayner, as they waited for the next man.
The score was sixty-five for seven.
Martin took all three remaining wickets, or rather the batsmen handed
him their lives. They came in half dead with fear (was not a cup at
stake?) and demanded their own extinction. The first played forward to
a slow half-volley and was caught and bowled, the next put his leg in
front of the straight ball on the leg stump, the last was caught off a
slow full toss. That was how Berney's won the cup.
Rayner walked home silently with Martin. "You great man!" was all he
could say.
"It was the great god Funk," answered Martin. "They just asked to get
out."
"You certainly bowled muck," admitted Rayner. "But it was all sheer
joy."
And though they pretended to treat the matter as a great jest, they
both felt a very genuine pleasure because they had won the cup for
Berney's.
That evening the captain of the School Eleven, who had heard that
Martin had taken seven wickets for twelve and thereby rendered Berney's
cock house, gave him his Second Eleven colours. He had not seen Martin
bowl.
Martin took the news to Rayner. "Well that," said Rayner, "fairly puts
the lid on it."
Together they shook the walls with laughter. Life is occasionally
dramatic, and the finale of Martin's school career had certainly a
touch of comedy.
It is commonly believed that boys undergo regrets and deep emotions
when they leave school. But Martin noticed that only a few Elfreyans
were moved at the thought of saying good-bye: some were charmed by the
prospect of entering a world of unlimited smokes and drinks and girls
and motor bicycles, others by the prospect of intellectual as well as
practical freedom. There were some who really regretted the end of
life's first act, boys who had enjoyed the games and the friendships
and were now passing to office work without the freedom of three or
four years' residence at the university. But those who were more
fortunate were eager as a rule to be up and off. Martin had been
amused by his last term with its athletic adventures and he had come to
appreciate to the full his uncle's advice about making the best of
existing institutions. Rayner, too, was a good sort and an excellent
friend. But the prospect of Oxford, notwithstanding his gloomy
foretaste of the place, attracted him undeniably--no, he could not be
moved.
On the last Sunday night Foskett delivered an address and ended with a
special appeal to those who were leaving to remember the honour and
welfare of their house and their school as well as their king and
country. But Martin was wondering all the time whether it were more
satisfactory to have won colours for good, solid cricket or to have
extorted a cup by mere bluff. There was something pleasant indeed in
the thought that a real cricketer would go on with his career, whereas
Martin would never dare to call himself a bowler at Oxford: on the
other hand, there was an exquisite piquancy in the consideration that
he had set out to 'do' cricket and had very successfully done it. Also
he had 'done' Randall's, and he was still boy enough to hate the rival
house with a fervent loathing. As the organ thundered out the farewell
hymn, he decided that to succeed in a fraud which does no real harm is
a very gratifying process. Then he pulled himself together and sang
dutifully.
XIII
Martin spent August and September at The Steading. The weather was
kind and he could lounge and play tennis to his heart's content. In
his spare moments he read Homer and Virgil, marking the hard passages
with a blue pencil, according to advice. His cousin Robert, who had
just finished his third year at Balliol, was working in a frenzy of
confusion and despair. He had devoted the whole previous year to
becoming President of the Union and, having gained his end, was now
endeavouring to condense all his Greats work into one year. He had
foolishly given way to panic, which meant that his work was as
unintelligent as it was ferocious. In the mornings he read Thucydides
and Cicero's Letters, smoking and swearing continuously. Martin used
to sit in the same room reading his Homer, but concentration was
rendered difficult by Robert's habit of roaring when he came to a
speech in the text of Thucydides. And when the roar was over he would
mutter in his distress:
"But the seeming firmness of those who will join in the contest is not
the actual loyalty of those who brought it on, but if, on the other
hand, anyone has much the greater advantage..." Having progressed so
far, he would look up and say: "Did I speak? I'm sorry!" Then he
would return sorrowfully to his speech.
In the evenings Robert read Bradley's _Logic and Appearance and
Reality_; if Martin came into the room he would be met with an outburst
on philosophy.
"It's all bunkum," Robert used to assert, throwing Bradley (library
copy) across the room. "Just organised bunkum. I suppose philosophers
have to make up some twaddle to justify their salaries, but they might
have spared us the Absolute!"
Robert was very angry about the Absolute and used to draw obscene
pictures of it, adding appropriate lyrics. Martin came to the
conclusion that Greats must be bad for the temper, but he was not
troubled by the reflection that some day he himself would be a
sufferer, for no sane person of eighteen thinks more than a year in
advance.
He began now to feel a growing dignity and responsibility. Plainly he
was no longer a schoolboy, not even a god-like prefectorial schoolboy,
but an undergraduate and a man of the world. Such status implied
duties, and he made efforts to cultivate a manner: he smoked a pipe
openly instead of cigarettes in secret: he also set about the task of
liking wine. This did not turn out to be so big a business as his
first experiences had led him to expect.
Further, he began to prefer his tennis mixed: he had been happier
before when there were only men and they could have a hard-hitting,
vigorous set. But now he wanted to display his newly acquired American
service and deadly smashes at the net to the girls who hit patiently
from the back line: he was inwardly ashamed of this desire to make an
impression on girls, but there it undeniably was.
Margaret Berrisford he had always taken for granted. She was a year
older than he was and very often she went away, for her father was
taking every precaution to save her from the usual limitations of the
squire's daughter. They were cousins and good friends and scarcely
ever spoke to each other alone: they merely said 'Good-morning' and
'Good-night' and played tennis together. Because they were practically
members of the same family they never took the trouble to find out
about one another. Margaret had beauty of a subtle, unimposing kind
and a strong athletic figure: moreover, she had brains and could talk.
Her interests were wide and she had an astonishing fund of information.
If she had been precipitated suddenly into the house as a visitor
Martin would certainly have fallen in love with her. As it was, the
idea never occurred to him.
It remained, as frequently happens, for a married woman to inflict the
first wound.
One afternoon at the end of September Martin was leaving the tennis
lawn after a vain effort to play in the failing light on dew-soaked
grass. He had stayed behind to collect the balls and was walking
slowly with three folded deck-chairs in one hand, while with the other
he carried the balls on his racket. Suddenly he became aware of voices
and almost ran into Mrs Berrisford and a stranger. He was introduced
to Mrs Cartmell.
"You can't very well shake hands," she observed. "We're going in.
Suppose I take the balls."
"Oh, please don't bother," said Martin.
But Mrs Cartmell grasped the racket and took it from him without
dropping any of the balls.
"Thanks very much," Martin remarked. "Do you play tennis?"
"In a feeble kind of way. I'm out of practice too."
"We'll put that all right," said Mrs Berrisford.
"The court is quite dry, up to tea-time," added Martin eagerly. "The
dew is very heavy later on and it gets dark soon, but it's all right if
you play early."
Martin's keenness amused Mrs Cartmell. "Of course I should love to
play," she said.
To his own astonishment Martin felt greatly relieved.
Godfrey Cartmell was prospective Radical candidate for the division.
To pass away the time he had been called to the Bar, but he never had
any need or any inclination to practise. At Oxford he had, like most
people, been President of the Liberal Club, and his faith was nebulous
but genuine. He had had the good sense to marry a capable woman who
carried him off maternally and saw to it that he didn't hang about any
longer, but made his terms with the Whips at once. Viola Cartmell was
neither egoistic nor vulgar, but she combined ambition with practical
driving power, and she had eaten the bread of obscurity far longer than
she liked. Godfrey had chances, but she saw that he had picked up
during his first-class education a capacity for doing nothing in a very
charming manner. She had already made him a candidate: she intended to
make him a success.
The Cartmells were close friends of the Berrisfords, and it was through
the connection that Godfrey had been introduced to the local Liberal
Association. Now they had come down to look round: the seat was held
by a Tory but had sound Radical traditions, so that a change was not
impossible. Naturally Godfrey Cartmell spent much of his time with the
agent: his wife thought it more tactful not to be too conspicuous at
first, for she had resolved that, when the time arrived, she was to
direct the campaign. So she had time to play tennis and go for walks
and make, quite unwittingly, a conquest.
It was certainly not with any feminine charms that Viola Cartmell won
Martin's adoration: rather it was by reason of her difference from the
average girl who came to play tennis or to visit the Berrisfords.
There was no need to talk down to her or to make conversation, no need
to take the initiative and play the gallant male. Viola neither
patronised Martin, as did the men who came to the house, nor expected
patronage, as did the girls. She treated him as an equal and talked
about reasonable things; she had ideas and could think clearly. If a
man had expressed her views Martin would have been interested, but the
fact that they came from a woman rendered them doubly attractive.
During the vacation Martin had begun to form a vision of the perfect
woman: it had been the ideal that appeals to most intelligent boys at
some period of their adolescence, the union of masculine mind and
female beauty. He was old enough now to be troubled by sex, not as
something abstract that might crop up in a theoretical future, but as a
present pain and pleasure: in his growing restlessness he tended
inevitably to find his ideal personified in every woman who was not
quite a fool, the wish being always father to the thought. Viola
Cartmell's masculine attributes, her managing ways, and her power of
thought and argument gave him a genuine excuse for setting her on his
pedestal. Yet Martin's attitude was one of adoration, not of passion.
Quite apart from the manifest impossibility of making love, apart too
from the fact that, even if circumstances had allowed, he did not know
how to make love, he did not even want to make love. He wanted to be
with her, to watch her, above all to talk with her: and that was the
limit of his desires.
On the tennis court Margaret and he were too strong for Robert and
Viola; accordingly the two Berrisfords fought great battles against the
visitors and as a rule prevailed. But they were not invincible. Once
Martin and Viola had lost two sets in succession and in the third the
score was five-three and forty-fifteen against them. Viola had said,
"Now we're going to win," and Martin had performed the most impossible
feats at the net, smashing and cutting and getting back for the lob.
Martin finished the set with a perfect drive down the said line.
"Wimbledon," said Robert, making no effort to reach it.
As they went in to tea his partner smiled upon him and said: "You were
simply wonderful."
That moment gave him greater joy than he had ever gained from the
avenging of Gideon or the conquest of Randall's with fraudulent
googlies.
On the last day of his holidays (it is a nice point whether the two
months before a man goes up to the university are to be called 'summer
hols' or 'long vac') a discussion was held after breakfast as to
procedure. Robert was sorry, but he had to give himself to the Ethics:
he had one day in which to settle the business of friendship and
pleasure (long neglected), and he had discovered to his horror that
some pieces of Aristotle must be learned by heart with a view to
translation. Margaret had to go to a dentist at Plymouth. At last
Martin asked Viola Cartmell to come out on the moor and to his joy she
assented.
They went by car to Merivale Bridge and then climbed up to Maiden Hill
and Cowsic Head. It was a superb October day. A great south wind came
up from the sea, salt and stinging but with no load of rain. Down in
the village the autumn had kindled the first fire in the woods and no
hue of flame was absent from the leaves. Shimmering with green and
yellow, gold and copper, the boughs made music for ear and eye. And on
the moor there was the wind and the sky and the infinite sweep of ridge
after ridge, broken with harsh tors and intractable granite. It may be
that the brave struggle of the dying year has its effect on man, for
there is something challenging in a good autumn day, something that
lifts and braces a man as spring can never do. Spring, at its best, is
languorous and its pleasures cloying, but autumn is a rousing friend
and makes exquisite the burden of life.
As they ate their sandwiches by the Bear Down Man, Martin could not
refrain from quoting:
"'And oh the days, the days, the days,
When all the four were off together:
The infinite deep of summer haze,
The roaring charge of autumn weather.'"
And indeed it was in the face of a charge as of cavalry that they
fought their way down to Two Bridges. There is rough going where the
moormen have cut for peat and trenched the heathery ridges in their
labour: and now, in addition to the need of leaping the rifts and
skirting green morasses, they had to battle with a wind that shrieked
and wrenched and gave no quarter. They talked but little until they
sheltered in a hollow. Then Martin took up the thread of an earlier
conversation.
"Do you really believe in this Liberalism?" he asked.
"Yes, of course."
"But do you think modern Liberal politics have any connection with
Liberalism?"
"Not much, I admit."
"Then I don't understand your point."
"It's quite simple. I believe vaguely in Liberalism, but we live in a
busy world where everybody is far too much occupied to think about
anything except business. Parliament's busy too: it has got to get
certain things done and it hasn't time for too much idealism and
spiritual attitudes and things of that sort. And when it comes to the
rather dull but very necessary work of keeping things going and
administering the Empire, I prefer the Liberals, because they have got
leaders with brains."
"I see."
"You think me very worldly?"
"Not at all. But I think you are wrong on your own canons. Liberal
leaders may be cleverer than Tory leaders, but that doesn't prove
Liberalism to be efficient. Just look at things!"
"And for efficiency you propose Socialism?"
"Not only for efficiency. It's a philosophy as well."
"But we're considering efficiency. Do you really suppose you have got
at your disposal the human capacity and good will and reasonableness to
build up a Co-operative Commonwealth? I don't say man hasn't the
brains to plan things. He plainly has, as you can see by reading the
wiser Socialists. But he hasn't a corresponding capacity for cohesion
and give and take. You'll have to depend on your Labour leaders and
Trade Unionists; but just look at them! They can only squabble and
bicker and show up their jealousy and pettiness. That's where the
stumbling-block lies."
In vain Martin contested. His opponent confronted him with the old
dilemma (new to him), that if, in setting up collectivism, you
confiscate property, you act unjustly to many, while, if you
compensate, you maintain an idle rich class. By the time that they
were once more on the march, Martin was becoming a devotee of
'efficient Liberalism.' But he enjoyed his defeat. If this method and
insistence had come from a man he would have felt very differently.
At last they reached Two Bridges and had tea at the hotel and waited
for the car to fetch them as had been arranged. It pleased Martin to
pay for the tea with his own pocket-money (his allowance would begin
to-morrow) and to refuse to listen to demands. She thought him silly
for the moment, since she did not understand how much he cared.
Dinner that evening was a capital meal. John Berrisford was in his
best form and kept up a lively duel with Viola Cartmell. Even Robert
managed to shake off the depressing effects of Aristotle. They drank
to Martin's career at Oxford.
"You're certain to like Oxford," said Godfrey Cartmell when the men
were alone.
"I'm afraid I wasn't much impressed by it in December," answered Martin.
"That wasn't Oxford," interrupted Robert. "That was a dismal city in
the Midlands seen at its worst."
"Exactly," said Mr Berrisford, breaking into the conversation. "Oxford
isn't a place. Everybody talks about the buildings and the age and the
dreaming spires. It goes down with the Yankees and the people who are
proud of having read _The Scholar Gipsy_, and I suppose it keeps up the
picture post card business."
"But there are good things," said Cartmell resentfully. He was of
Magdalen.
"Certainly. But these things are incidental and not essential. After
all, the best college--with all due respect to you, Cartmell, and to
you, Martin--has a front quad like a toy castle and a chapel--well, I
suppose it's the kind of chapel that particular college ought to have,
according to all tradition--a Great Speckled Warning against God. Half
the most sensible people in Oxford don't know a jot about the
architecture, but they know Oxford."
"Then," answered Cartmell, taking up the argument, as behoved a
Liberal, seriously, "would you mind if the whole show--the educational
work, I mean--were transferred to Margate or Southend or some place
with a little air? On your theory that would be a very sound plan."
"It has its points," added Robert. "Just think of the progs on a
seaside promenade."
"And the sea," continued his father, "is limitless. Many young men
would go down to the sea in ships and have business in great waters.
What a chance for enterprise! Moonlight trips round the bay."
"But seriously," said Cartmell, still smarting under the implied
contempt for Magdalen's beauty.
"The port lingers at your side," was the answer. "Restore the
circulation."
"Well, seriously," John Berrisford continued, when his glass had been
filled again, "to move would be fatal, because the traditions would all
go if you took them away from their home. But it's the traditions that
count, not the place. God knows I'm willing enough to be sentimental
about places. I can even enjoy hearing the song about 'Devon, glorious
Devon,' sung by a Dandy Coon baritone at an audience of Cockneys at
Teignmouth. I can understand a Scottish exile in America going a
hundred miles to hear Harry Lauder. To my mind places are the only
things about which a man has a right to be sentimental. No causes or
catch-words for me: but hills and valleys--as much as you like. That's
Nationalism, and therefore Liberalism, Cartmell."
"I agree!"
"You don't, but I'll take your word. But what was I saying? Oh yes,
about Oxford. Oxford is all right. I know you get the worst wine in
the world there--I suppose it's specially imported for the benefit of
the young men of the world who believe that anything is nectar if you
pay more than ten bob a bottle for it--but you still find people
drinking properly. Richly, I mean, and with conviction. I think I'd
rather be a teetotaller----"
"Which God avert!" put in Cartmell.
"Amen to that. Yes, I'd rather be a True Blue than drink one glass of
wine at dinner. One glass! It's an insult. Now at Oxford----"