THE LENT TERM
CHAPTER ONE
I
"The worst term uv the three, sir, that's my opinion," said Burton,
pulling the curtains across the window at dusk.
"What makes you think that?" asked Speed, forcing himself to be affable.
"Well, you see, sir, the winter term--or, prop'ly speakin', sir, I
should say the Michaelmas term--isn't so bad because there's the
Christmas 'olidays to look forward to. But the Lent Term always seems to
me to be ten times worse, because there's nothin' at the end of it to
look forward to. Is there now, sir?"
"There's the Easter holidays and the spring weather."
Burton grinned. "That's if you're an optimist, sir."
He was an old man, deeply attached to the school and very reliable, but
prone to take odd liberties on the strength of age and service. Speed
always felt that in Burton's eyes he was a youngster, hardly less a
youngster than one of the prefects, and that Burton considered himself
as the central planet of Lavery's round which Speed revolved as merely a
satellite. The situation had amused him until now; but on this afternoon
of the return from Beachings Over a whole crowd of sinister suspicions
assailed him. In Burton's attitude he seemed to detect a certain
carefully-veiled mockery; was it possible that Burton knew or guessed
the secret of his appointment to Lavery's? Was it also possible that
Burton had pierced through his marriage with Helen and had seen the
sinister scheme behind it?
He stared hard at Burton. The man was old in a rather theatrical way; he
clumped about exactly like the faithful retainer in the old-fashioned
melodrama; if you addressed him he would turn round, put one hand to his
ear, to leer at you, and say grotesquely: "Sir?" He was the terror of
all the housemaids, the pet of all the Junior boys, and a sort of
communal butler and valet to the prefects. And, beyond all doubt, he was
one of the sights of Lavery's. For the moment Speed detested him.
"I say, Burton."
The turn, the hand to ear, the leer, and the grotesque interrogative:
"Sir?"
"How long have you been at Millstead?"
"Fifty-one year, sir, come next July. I started when I was fourteen year
old, sir, peelin' potaties in the old kitchins that used to be
underneath Milner's. I come to Lavery's when I was twenty-four as
underporter. I remember old Mr. Hardacre that wuz 'ousemaster before Mr.
Lavery, Sir. Mr. Lavery was 'ousemaster for thirty-eight year, sir, an'
a very great friend of mine. He came to see me only larst Toosday, sir,
a-knockin' at the pantry door just like an old pal o' mine might. He wuz
wantin' to know 'ow the old place was gettin' on."
Speed's glance hardened. He could imagine Lavery and Burton having a
malicious conversation about himself.
Burton went on, grinning: "He was arskin' after you, Mr. Speed. I told
'im you wuz away spendin' the Christmas with Sir Charles and Lady Speed.
An' I told him you wuz doin' very well an' bein' very popular, if you'll
pard'n the liberty I took."
"Oh, certainly," said Speed, rather coldly.
When Burton had gone out he poked up the fire and pondered. Now that he
was back at Millstead he wished he had stayed longer in Beachings Over.
Millstead was absolutely a dead place in vacation time, and in the
Christmas vacation nothing more dreary and uniformly depressing had ever
come within his experience. Dr. and Mrs. Ervine, so Potter informed him,
had gone to town for a few days and would not be back until after the
New Year. None of the other housemasters was in residence. The huge
empty footer pitches, hardly convalescent after the frays of the past
term, were being marked off for hockey by the groundsman; the chapel was
undergoing a slothful scrubbing by a platoon of chattering charwomen;
the music-rooms were closed; the school organ was in the hands of the
repairers; the clock in the chapel belfry had stopped, apparently
because it was nobody's business to wind it up during vacation-time.
Perhaps it would freeze enough for skating on Dinglay Fen, was his most
rapturous hope. Helen was shopping in the village, and he expected her
back very soon. It was nearly dark now, but the groundsman was still
busy. There was something exquisitely forlorn in that patient
transference from cricket to footer, from footer to hockey, and then
from hockey to cricket again, which marked the passage of the years at
Millstead. He wondered how long it would all last. He wondered what sort
of an upheaval would be required to change it. Would famine or
pestilence or war or revolution be enough?
Helen came in. It was curious that his suspicion of her, at first
admitted to be without confirmation, had now become almost a certainty;
so that he no longer felt inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt,
or even that there was any doubt whose benefit he could give her.
While they were having tea he suddenly decided that he would go out that
evening alone and walk himself into a better humour. A half-whimsical
consciousness of his own condition made him rather more kind to her; he
felt sorry for anybody who had to put up with him in his present mood.
He said: "I think I'll have a walk after tea, Helen. I'll be back about
eight. It'll do me good to take some exercise."
She gave him a sudden, swift, challenging look, and he could see exactly
what was in her eyes. She thought he was going to see Clare.
The thought had not been in his mind before. But now he was at the mercy
of it; it invaded him; after all, why shouldn't he visit Clare?
Furthermore, what right had Helen to stop him? He put on his hat and coat
in secret tingling excitement; he would go down into the village and
visit Clare. Curious that he hadn't thought of it before! Helen had
simply no right to object. And as he turned his mind to all the
suspicions that had so lately crowded into it, he felt that he was
abundantly justified in visiting a friend of his, even if his wife were
foolishly jealous of her.
"Back about eight," he repeated, as he opened the door to go out.
Somehow, he wanted to kiss her. He had always kissed her before going
out from Lavery's. But now, since she made no reply to his remark,
presumably she did not expect it.
II
The Millstead road was black as jet, for the moon was hidden behind the
thickest of clouds. It was just beginning to freeze, and as he strode
along the path by the school railings he thought of those evenings in
the winter term when he had seen Clare home after the concert
rehearsals. Somehow, all that seemed ages ago. The interlude at
Beachings Over had given all the previous term the perspective of
immense distance; he felt as if he had been housemaster at Lavery's for
years, as if he had been married to Helen for years, and as if Clare
were a friend whom he had known long years ago and had lost sight of
since.
As he reached the High Street he began to feel nervous. After all, Clare
might not want to see him. He remembered vaguely their last interview
and the snub she had given him. He looked further back and remembered
the first time he had ever seen her; that dinner at the Head's house on
the first evening of the summer term....
But he could not help being nervous. He tried to think that what he was
doing was something perfectly natural and ordinary; that he was just
paying a call on a friend as anybody might have done on a return from a
holiday. He was angry with himself for getting so excited about the
business. And when he rang the bell of the side-door next to the shop he
had the distinct hope that she would not be in.
But she was in.
She came to the door herself, and it was so dark outside that she could
not see him. "Who is it?" she asked, and he replied, rather fatuously
expecting her to recognise his voice immediately: "Me. I hope I'm not
disturbing you."
She answered, in that characteristically unafraid way of hers: "I'm sure
I don't know in the least who you are. Will you tell me your name?"
Then he said, rather embarrassedly: "Speed, my name is."
"Oh?"
Such a strange surprised little "Oh?" He could not see her any more than
she could see him, but he knew that she was startled.
"Am I disturbing you?" he went on.
"Oh, no. You'd better come inside. There's nobody in except myself, so I
warn you."
"Warn me of what?"
"Of the conventions you are breaking by coming in."
"Would you rather I didn't?"
"Oh, don't trouble about me. It's yourself you must think about."
"Very well then, I'll come in."
"Right. There are five steps, then two paces along the level, and then
two more steps. It's an old house, you see."
In the dark and narrow lobby, with the front door closed behind him, and
Clare somewhere near him in the darkness, he suddenly felt no longer
nervous but immensely exhilarated, as if he had taken some decisive and
long contemplated step--some step that, wise or unwise, would at least
bring him into a new set of circumstances.
Something in her matter-of-fact directions was immensely reassuring; a
feeling of buoyancy came over him as he felt his way along the corridor
with Clare somewhat ahead of him. She opened a door and a shaft of
yellow lamplight came out and prodded the shadows.
"My little sitting-room," she said.
It was a long low-roofed apartment with curtained windows at either end.
Persian rugs and tall tiers of bookshelves and some rather good pieces
of old furniture gave it a deliciously warm appearance; a heavily shaded
lamp was the sole illumination. Speed, quick to appreciate anything
artistic, was immediately impressed; he exclaimed, on the threshold: "I
say, what a gloriously old-fashioned room!"
"Not all of it," she answered quietly. She turned the shade of the lamp
so that its rays focussed themselves on a writing-desk in an alcove.
"The typewriter and the telephone are signs that I am not at all an
old-fashioned person."
"I didn't say that, did I?" he replied, smiling.
She laughed. "Please sit down and be comfortable. It's nice to have such
an unexpected call. And I'm glad that though I'm banned from Lavery's
you don't consider yourself banned from here."
"Ah," he said. He was surprised that she had broached the question so
directly. He flushed slightly and went on, after a pause: "I think
perhaps the ban had better be withdrawn altogether."
"Why?"
"Oh, well--well, it doesn't matter--I didn't come here to talk about
it."
"Oh, yes, you did. That's just what you did come here to talk about.
Either that or something more serious. You don't mean to tell me that
you pay an unconventional call like this just to tell me what an
enjoyable holiday you've had."
"I didn't have an enjoyable holiday at all," he answered.
"There! I guessed as much! After all, you wouldn't have come home so
soon if you'd been having a thoroughly good time, would you?"
"Helen wanted to come home."
She ceased her raillery of him and went suddenly serious. For some time
she stared into the fire without speaking, and then, in a different tone
of voice altogether she said: "Why did she want to come home?"
He began to talk rather fast and staccato. "I--I don't know whether I
ought to tell you this--except that you were Helen's friend and can
perhaps help me.... You see, Helen was very nervous the whole time, and
there were one or two dinner-parties, and she--well, not exactly put her
foot in it, you know, but was--well, rather obviously out of everything.
I don't know how it is--she seems quite unable to converse in the
ordinary way that people do--I don't mean anything brilliant--few
people converse brilliantly--what I mean is that--well, she--"
She interrupted: "You mean that when her neighbour says, 'Have you heard
Caruso in Carmen?'--she hasn't got the sense to reply: 'Oh, yes, isn't
he simply gorgeous?'"
"That's a rather satirical way of putting it."
"Well, anyway, it seems a small reason for coming home. If I were
constitutionally incapable of sustaining dinner-party small-talk and my
husband brought me away from his parents for that reason, I'd leave him
for good."
"I didn't bring her away. She begged me to let her go."
"Then you must have been cruel to her. You must have made her think that
it mattered."
"Well, doesn't it matter?"
She laughed a little harshly. "What a different man you're becoming, Mr.
Speed! Before you married Helen you knew perfectly well that she was
horribly nervous in front of strangers and that she'd never show off
well at rather tiresome society functions. And yet if I or anybody else
had dared to suggest that it mattered you'd have been most tremendously
indignant. You used to think her nervousness rather charming, in fact."
He said, rather pathetically: "You've cornered me, I confess. And I
suppose I'd better tell you the real reason. Helen's nervousness doesn't
matter to me. It never has mattered and it doesn't matter now. It wasn't
that, or rather, that would never have annoyed me but for something
infinitely more serious. While I was at home I found out about my
appointment at Lavery's."
"Well, what about it?"
"It was my father got it for me. He interviewed Portway and Ervine and
God knows who else."
"Well?"
"Well?--Do you think I like to be dependent on that sort of help? Do you
think I like to remember all the kind things that people at Millstead
have said about me, and to feel that they weren't sincere, that they
were simply the result of a little of my father's wire-pulling?"
She did not answer.
"I left home," he went on, "because my father wanted to shove me into a
nice comfortable job in a soap-works. I wanted to earn my own living on
my own merits. And then, when I manage to get free, he thoughtfully
steps in front of me, so to speak, and without my knowing it, makes the
path smooth for me!"
"What an idealist you are, Mr. Speed!"
"What?"
"An idealist. So innocent of the world! Personally, I think your
father's action extremely kind. And also I regard your own condition as
one of babyish innocence. Did you really suppose that an unknown man,
aged twenty-three, with a middling degree and only one moderately
successful term's experience, would be offered the Mastership of the
most important House at Millstead, unless there'd been a little private
manœuvring behind the scenes? Did you think that, in the ordinary
course of nature, a man like Ervine would be only too willing to set you
up in Lavery's with his daughter for a wife?"
"Ah, that's it! He wanted me to marry Helen, didn't he?"
"My dear man, wasn't it perfectly obvious that he did? All through last
summer term you kept meeting her in the school grounds and behaving in a
manner for which any other Master would have been instantly sacked, and
all he did was to smile and be nice and keep inviting you to dinner!"
Speed cried excitedly: "Yes, that's what my father said. He said it was
a plant; that Ervine in the end proved himself the cleverer of the two."
"Your father told you that?"
"No, I overheard it."
"Your father, I take it, didn't like Helen?"
"He didn't see the best of her. She was so nervous."
He went on eagerly: "Don't you see the suspicion that's in my
mind?--That Ervine plotted with Helen to get me married to her! That she
married me for all sorts of sordid and miserable reasons!"
And then Clare said, with as near passion as he had ever yet seen in
her: "Mr. Speed, you're a fool! You don't understand Helen.
She has faults, but there's one certain thing about her--she's
straight--_absolutely_ straight! And if you've been cruel to her because
you suspected her of being crooked, then you've done her a fearful
injustice! She's straight--straight to the point of obstinacy."
"You think that?"
"_Think_ it? Why, man, I'm _certain_ of it!"
And at the sound of her words, spoken so confidently and indignantly, it
seemed so to him. Of course she was straight. And he had been cruel to
her. He was always the cause of her troubles. It was always his fault.
And at that very moment, might be, she was crying miserably in the
drawing-room at Lavery's, crying for jealousy of Clare. A sudden fierce
hostility to Clare swept over him; she was too strong, too clever, too
clear-seeing. He hated her because it was so easy for her to see things
as they were; because all problems seemed to yield to the probing of her
candid eyes. He hated her because he knew, and had felt, how easy it was
to take help from her. He hated her because her sympathy was so
practical and abundant and devoid of sentiment. He hated her, perhaps,
because he feared to do anything else.
She said softly: "What a strange combination of strength and weakness
you are, Mr. Speed! Strong enough to follow out an ideal, and weak
enough to be at the mercy of any silly little suspicion that comes into
your mind!"
He was too much cowed down by the magnitude of his blunder to say a
great deal more, and in a short while he left, thanking her rather
embarrassedly for having helped him. And he said, in the pitch-dark
lobby as she showed him to the front door: "Clare, I think this visit of
mine had better be a secret, don't you?"
And she replied: "You needn't fear that I shall tell anybody."
When the door had closed on him outside and he was walking back along
the Millstead lane it occurred to him quite suddenly: Why, I called her
Clare! He was surprised, and perhaps slightly annoyed with himself for
having done unconsciously what he would never have done intentionally.
Then he wondered if she had noticed it, and if so, what she had thought.
He reflected that she had plenty of good practical sense in her, and
would not be likely to stress the importance of it. Good practical
sense! The keynote of her, so it seemed to him. How strong and helpful
it was, and yet, in another way, how deeply and passionately opposed to
his spirit! Why, he could almost imagine Clare getting on well with his
father. And when he reflected further, that, in all probability, his
father would like Clare because she had "her wits about her," it seemed
to him that the deepest level of disparagement had been reached. He
smiled to himself a little cynically; then in a wild onrush came remorse
at the injustice he had done to Helen. All the way back to Millstead he
was grappling with it and making up his mind that he would be
everlastingly kind to her in the future, and that, since she was as she
was, he would not see Clare any more.
III
He found her, as he had more than half expected, sitting in the
drawing-room at Lavery's, her feet bunched up in front of the fire and
her hands clasping her knees. She was not reading or sewing or even
crying; she was just sitting there in perfect stillness, thinking,
thinking, thinking. He knew, as by instinct, that this was not a pose of
hers; he knew that she had been sitting like that for a quarter, a half,
perhaps a whole hour before his arrival; and that, if he had come later,
she would probably have been waiting and thinking still. Something in
her which he did not understand inclined her to brood, and to like
brooding. As he entered the room and saw her thus, and as she gave one
swift look behind her and then, seeing it was he, turned away again to
resume her fireside brooding, a sudden excruciatingly sharp feeling of
irritation rushed over him, swamping for the instant even his remorse:
why was she so silent and aggrieved? If he had treated her badly, why
did she mourn in such empty, terrible silence? Then remorse recovered
its sway over him and her attitude seemed the simple and tremendous
condemnation of himself.
He did not know how to begin; he wanted her to know how contrite he was,
yet he dared not tell her his suspicion. Oh, if she had only the tact to
treat him as if it had never happened, so that he in return could treat
her as if it had never happened, and the unhappy memory of it all be
speedily swept away! But he knew from the look on her that she could
never do that.
He walked up to the back of her chair, put his hand on her shoulder, and
said: "Helen!"
She shrugged her shoulders with a sudden gesture that made him take his
hand away. She made no answer.
He blundered after a pause: "Helen, I'm so sorry I've been rather hard
on you lately--it's all been a mistake, and I promise--"
"You've been down to see Clare!" she interrupted him, with deadly
quietness, still watching the fire.
He started. Then he knew that he must lie, because he could never
explain to her the circumstances in a way that she would not think
unsatisfactory.
"Helen, I haven't!" he exclaimed, and his indignation sounded sincere,
perhaps because his motive in lying was a pure one.
She made no answer to that.
He went on, more fervently: "I didn't see Clare, Helen! Whatever made
you think that?--I just went for a walk along the Deepersdale road--I
wanted some exercise, that was all!"
She laughed--an awful little coughing laugh.
"You went to see Clare," she persisted, turning round and, for the first
time, looking him in the eyes. "I followed you, and I saw you go in
Clare's house."
"You did?" he exclaimed, turning suddenly pale.
"Yes. Now what have you got to say?"
He was, rather to his own surprise, quite furious with her for having
followed him. "I've simply got this to say," he answered, hotly. "You've
done no good by following me. You've made me feel I can't trust you, and
you've made yourself feel that you can't trust me. You'll never believe
the true explanation of why I went to Clare--you'll go on suspecting all
sorts of impossible things--you'll worry yourself to death over
nothing--and as for me--well, whenever I go out alone I shall wonder if
you're following a few hundred yards behind!"
Then she said, still with the same tragic brooding quietness: "You
needn't fear, Kenneth. I'll never follow you. I didn't follow you
to-night. I only said I did. I found out what I wanted to find out just
as well by that, didn't I?"
He was dazed. He had never guessed that she could be so diabolically
clever. He sank into a chair and shut his eyes, unable to speak. She
went on, without the slightest inflexion in the maddening level of her
voice: "I'm going to leave you, Kenneth. You want Clare, and I'm going
to leave you to her. I won't have you when you want another woman."
He buried his head in his hands and muttered, in a voice husky with
sobbing: "That's not true, Helen. I don't want Clare. I don't want any
other woman. I only want you, Helen. Helen, you won't leave me, will
you? Promise me you won't leave me, Helen. Helen, don't you--can't you
believe me when I tell you I don't want Clare?"
Still she reiterated, like some curious, solemn litany: "I'm going to
leave you, Kenneth. You don't really want me. It's Clare you want, not
me. You'll be far happier with Clare. And I shall be far happier without
you than with you when you're wanting Clare. I--I can't bear you to want
Clare, Kenneth. I'd rather you--have her--than want her. So I've
decided. I'm not angry with you. I'm just determined, that's all. I
shall leave you and then you'll be free to do what you like."
Somehow, a feeling of overwhelming tiredness overspread him, so that for
a short moment he felt almost inclined to acquiesce from mere lack of
energy to do anything else. He felt sick as he stared at her. Then a
curiously detached aloofness came into his attitude; he looked down on
the situation a trifle cynically and thought: How dramatic! Something in
him wanted to laugh, and something else in him wanted to cry; most of
him wanted to kiss her and be comfortable and go to sleep; and nothing
at all of him wanted to argue. He wondered just then if such a moment
ever came to her as it came to him; a moment when he could have borne
philosophically almost any blow, when all human issues seemed engulfed
in the passionate desire to be let alone.
Yet some part of him that was automatic continued the argument. He
pleaded with her, assured her of his deep and true love, poured infinite
scorn on Clare and his relations with her, held up to view a rosy future
at Lavery's in which he would live with Helen as in one long, idyllic
dream. And as he sketched out this beautiful picture, his mind was
ironically invaded by another one, which he did not show her, but which
he felt to be more true: Lavery's in deep winter-time, with the wind and
rain howling round the walls of it, and the bleak shivering corridors,
and the desolation of the afternoons, and the cramped hostility of the
Masters' Common-Room, and the red-tinted drawing-room at night, all full
of shadows and silence and tragic monotony. And all the time he was
picturing that in his mind he was telling her of Lavery's with the sun
on it, and the jessamine, and the classrooms all full of the sunlit air,
and love, like a queen, reigning over it all. The vision forced itself
out; Helen saw it, but Speed could not. As he went on pleading with her
he became enthusiastic, but it was an artistic enthusiasm; he was
captivated by his own skill in persuasion. And whenever, for a moment,
this interest in his own artistry waned, there came on him afresh the
feeling of deep weariness, and a desire only to rest and sleep and be
friends with everybody.
At last he persuaded her. It had taken from nine o'clock until midnight.
He was utterly tired out when he had finished. Yet there seemed to be no
tiredness in her, only a happiness that she could now take and caress
him as her own. She could not understand how, now that they had made
their reconciliation, he should not be eager to cement it by
endearments. Instead of which he lit a cigarette and said that he was
hungry.
While she busied herself preparing a small meal he found himself
watching her continually as she moved about the room, and wondering, in
the calmest and most aloof manner, whether he was really glad that he
had won. Eventually he decided that he was. She was his wife and he
loved her. If they were careful to avoid misunderstandings no doubt they
would get along tolerably well in the future. The future! The vision
came to him again of the term that was in front of him; a vision that
was somehow frightening.
Yet, above all else, he was tired--dead tired.
The last thing she said to him that night was a soft, half-whimpered:
"Kenneth, I believe you do want Clare."
He said sleepily, and without any fervour: "My dear, I assure you I
don't."
And he fell asleep wondering very vaguely what it would be like to want
Clare, and whether it would ever be possible for him to do so.
CHAPTER TWO
I
Term began on the Wednesday in the third week in January.
Once again, the first few days were something of an ordeal. Constant
anticipations had filled Speed's mind with apprehensions; he was full of
carefully excogitated glooms. Would the hostility of the Masters be more
venomous? Would the prefects of his own house attempt to undermine his
discipline? Would the rank and file try to "rag" him when he took
preparation in the Big Hall? Somehow, all his dreams of Millstead and of
Lavery's had turned now to fears; he had slipped into the position when
it would satisfy him merely to avoid danger and crush hostility. No
dreams now about Lavery's being the finest House in Millstead, and he
the glorious and resplendent captain of it; no vision now of scouring
away the litter of mild corruptions and abuses that hedged in Lavery's
on all sides; no hopes of a new world, made clean and wholesome by his
own influence upon it. All his desire was that he should escape the
pitfalls that were surrounding him, that he should, somehow, live
through the future without disaster to himself. Enthusiasm was all gone.
Those old days when he had plunged zestfully into all manner of new
things, up to his neck in happiness as well as in mistakes--those days
were over. His one aim now was not to make mistakes, and though he did
not know it, he cared for little else in the world.
That first night of term he played the beginning-of-term hymn in the
chapel.
"Lord, behold us with Thy blessing,
Once again assembled here ..."
The words fell on his mind with a sense of heavy, unsurmountable gloom.
He looked into the mirror above his head and saw the choir-stalls and
the front rows of the pews; the curious gathering of Millsteadians in
their not-yet-discarded vacation finery; Millsteadians unwontedly sober;
some, perhaps, a little heart-sick. He saw Ervine's back, as he read the
lesson from the lectern, and as he afterwards stood to pronounce the
Benediction. "The grace of God, which passeth--um--understanding, and
the--um--fellowship of the--um--the Holy Spirit ..."
He hated that man.
He thought of the dark study and Potter and the drawing-room where he
and Helen had spent so many foolish hours during the summer term of the
year before.
_Foolish_ hours? Had he come to the point when he looked back with scorn
upon his courtship days? No, no; he withdrew the word "foolish."
" ... rest upon--um--all our hearts--now and--um--for
ever--um--Ah--men.... I would--um, yes--be glad--if the--um--the--the
new boys this term--would stay behind to see me--um, yes--to see me for
a moment...."
Yes, he hated that man.
He gathered his gown round him and descended the ladder into the vestry.
A little boy said "Good-evening, Mr. Speed," and shook hands with him.
"Good-evening, Robinson," he said, rather quietly. The boy went on: "I
hope you had a nice Christmas, sir." Speed started, checked himself, and
replied: "Oh yes, very nice, thanks. And you too, I hope." "Oh yes,
sir," answered the boy. When he had gone Speed wondered if the whole
incident had been a subtle and ironical form of "ragging." Cogitation
convinced him that it couldn't have been; yet fear, always watching and
ready to pounce, would have made him think so. He felt really alarmed as
he walked back across the quadrangle to Lavery's, alarmed, not about the
Robinson incident, which he could see was perfectly innocent, but
because he was so prone to these awful and ridiculous fears. If he went
on suspecting where there was no cause, and imagining where there was no
reality, some day Millstead would drive him mad. _Mad_--yes, _mad_. Two
boys ran past him quickly and he could see that they stopped afterwards
to stare at him and to hold some sort of a colloquy. What was that for?
Was there anything peculiar about him? He felt to see if his gown was on
wrong side out: no, that was all right. Then what did they stop for?
Then he realised that he was actually speaking that sentence out aloud;
he had said, as to some corporeal companion: _What did they stop for_?
Had he been gibbering like that all the way across the quadrangle? Had
the two boys heard him talking about going mad? Good God, he hoped not!
That would be terrible, terrible. He went in to Lavery's with the sweat
standing out in globes on his forehead. And yet, underfoot, the ground
was beginning to be hard with frost.
Well, anyway, one thing was comforting; he was getting along much better
with Helen. They had not had any of those dreadful, pathetic scenes for
over a fortnight. His dreams of happiness were gone; it was enough if he
succeeded in staving off the misery. As he entered the drawing-room
Helen ran forward to meet him and kissed him fervently. "The first night
of our new term," she said, but the mention only gave a leap to his
anxieties. But he returned her embrace, willing to extract what
satisfaction he could from mere physical passion.
II
An hour later he was dining in the Masters' Common-Room. He would have
avoided the ordeal but for the unwritten law which ordained that even
the housemasters should be present on the first night of term. Not that
there was anything ceremonial about the proceedings. Nothing happened
that did not always happen, except the handshaking and the disposition
to talk more volubly than usual. Potter arched his long mottled neck in
between each pair of diners in exactly the same manner as heretofore;
there was the same unchanged menu of vegetable soup, undercooked meat,
and a very small tart on a very large plate.
But to Speed it seemed indeed as if everything was changed. The room
seemed different; seemed darker, gloomier, more chronically
insufferable; Potter's sibilant, cat-like stealthiness took on a degree
of sinisterness that made Speed long to fight him and knock him down,
soup-plates and all; the food tasted reminiscently of all the vaguely
uncomfortable things he had ever known. But it was in the faces of the
men around him that he detected the greatest change of all. He thought
they were all hating him. He caught their eyes glancing upon him
malevolently; he thought that when they spoke to him it was with some
subtle desire to insult him; he thought also, that when they were silent
it was because they were ignoring him deliberately. The mild distaste he
had had for some of them, right from the time of first meeting, now
flamed up into the most virulent and venomous of hatreds. And even
Clanwell, whom he had always liked exceedingly, he suspected ever so
slightly at first, though in a little while he liked him as much as
ever, and more perhaps, because he liked the others so little.
Pritchard he detested. Pritchard enquired about his holiday, how and
where he had spent it, and whether he had had a good time; also if Mrs.
Speed were quite well, and how had she liked the visit to Beachings
Over. Somehow, the news had spread that he had taken Helen to spend
Christmas at his parents' house. He wondered in what way, but felt too
angry to enquire. Pritchard's questions stung him to silent, bottled-up
fury; he answered in monosyllables.
"Friend Speed has the air of a thoughtful man," remarked Ransome in his
oblique, half-sarcastic way. And Speed smiled at this, not because it
amused him at all, but because Ransome possessed personality which
submerged to some extent his own.
Finally, when Clanwell asked him up to coffee he declined, courteously,
but with a touch of unboyish reserve which he had never previously
exhibited in his relations with Clanwell. "I've got such a lot of work
at Lavery's," he pleaded. "Another night, Clanwell...."
And as he walked across the quadrangle at half-past eight he heard again
those curious sounds that had thrilled him so often before, those sounds
that told him that Millstead had come to life again. The tall blocks of
Milner's and Lavery's were cliffs of yellow brillance, from which great
slanting shafts of light fell away to form a patchwork on the
quadrangle. He heard again the chorus of voices in the dormitories, the
tinkle of crockery in the basement studies, the swish of water into the
baths, the babel of miscellaneous busyness. He saw faces peering out of
the high windows, and heard voices calling to one another across the
dark gulf between the two houses. It did not thrill him now, or rather,
it did not thrill him with the beauty of it; it was a thrill of terror,
if a thrill at all, which came to him. And he climbed up the flight of
steps that led to the main door of Lavery's and was almost afraid to
ring the bell of his own house.
Burton came, shambling along with his unhappy feet and
beaming--positively beaming--because it was the beginning of the term.
"Once again, sir," he said, mouthing, as he admitted Speed. He jangled
his huge keys in his hand as if he were a stage jailer in a stage
prison. "I don't like the 'ockey term myself, sir, but I'd rather have
any term than the 'olidays."
"Yes," said Speed, rather curtly.
There were several jobs he had to do. Some of them he could postpone for
a day, or perhaps, even for a few days, if he liked, but there was no
advantage in doing so, and besides, he would feel easier when they were
all done. First, he had to deliver a little pastoral lecture to the new
boys. Then he had to chat with the prefects, old and new--rather an
ordeal that. Then he had to patrol the dormitories and see that
everything was in proper order. Then he had to take and give receipts
for money which anybody might wish to "bank" with him. Then he had to
give Burton orders about the morning. Then he had to muster a roll-call
and enquire about those who had not arrived. Then, at ten-thirty, he had
to see that all lights were out and the community settled in its beds
for slumber....
All of which he accomplished automatically. He told the new boys, in a
little speech that was meant to be facetious, that the one unforgivable
sin at Lavery's was to pour tea-leaves down the waste-pipes of the
baths. He told the prefects, in a voice that was harsh because it was
nervous, that he hoped they would all co-operate with him for the good
of the House. He told Burton, quite tonelessly, to ring the bell in the
dormitories at seven-thirty, and to have breakfast ready in his
sitting-room at eight. And he went round the dormitories at half-past
ten, turning out gases and delivering brusque good-nights.
Then he went downstairs into the drawing-room of his own house where
Helen was. He went in smiling. Helen was silent, but he knew from
experience that silence with her did not necessarily betoken
unhappiness. Yet even so, he found such silences always unnerving.
To-night he wanted, if she had been in the mood, to laugh, to be jolly,
to bludgeon away his fears. He would not have minded getting slightly
drunk.... But she was silent, brooding, no doubt, happily, but with a
sadness that was part of her happiness.
As he passed by the table in the dimly-lit room he knocked over the
large cash-box full of the monies that the boys had banked with him. It
fell on to the floor with a crash which made all the wires in the piano
vibrate.
"Aren't you careless?" said Helen, quietly, looking round at him.
He looked at her, then at the cash-box on the floor, and said finally:
"Damn it all! A bit of noise won't harm us. This isn't a funeral."
He said it sharply, exasperated, as if he were just trivially enraged.
After he had said it he stared at her, waiting for her to say something.
But she made no answer, and after a long pause he solemnly picked up the
cash-box.
III
There came a January morning when he had a sudden and almost intolerable
longing to see Clare. The temperature was below freezing-point, although
the sun was shining out of a clear sky; and he was taking five _alpha_
in art drawing in a room in which the temperature, by means of the
steamiest of hot-water pipes, had been raised to sixty. His desk was at
the side of a second-floor window, and as he looked out of it he could
see the frost still white on the quadrangle and the housemaids pouring
hot water and ashes on the slippery cloister-steps. He had, first of
all, an urgent desire to be outside in the keen, crisp air, away from
the fugginess of heated class-rooms; then faintly-heard trot of horses
along the Millstead lane set up in him a restlessness that grew as the
hands of his watch slid round to the hour of dismissal. It was a
half-holiday in the afternoon, and he decided to walk up to Dinglay Fen,
taking with him his skates, in case the ice should be thick enough. The
thought of it, cramped up in a stuffy class-room, was a sufficiently
disturbing one. And then, quite suddenly, there came into his longing
for the fresh air and the freedom of the world a secondary
longing--faint at first, and then afterwards stormily insurgent--a
longing for Clare to be with him on his adventures. That was all. He
just wanted her company, the tread of her feet alongside his on the
fenland roads, her answers to his questions, and her questions for him
to answer. It was a strange want, it seemed to him, but a harmless one;
and he saw no danger in it.
Dismissal-hour arrived, and by that time he was in a curious ferment of
desire. Moreover, his brain had sought out and discovered a piece of
casuistry suitable for his purpose. Had not Clare, on the occasion of
his last visit to her, told him plainly and perhaps significantly that
she would never tell anyone of his visit? And if she would not tell of
that one, why should she of _any one_--any one he might care to make in
the future? And as his only reason for not visiting her was a desire to
please Helen, surely that end was served just as easily if he did visit
her, provided that Helen did not know. There could be no moral iniquity
in lying to Helen in order to save her from unhappiness, and anyway, a
lie to her was at least as honest as her subterfuge had been in order to
learn from him of his last visit. On all sides, therefore, he was able
to fortify himself for the execution of his desire.
But, said Caution, it would be silly to see her in the daytime, and
out-of-doors, for then they would run the risk of being seen together by
some of the Millstead boys, or the masters, and the affair would pretty
soon come to Helen's ears, along channels that would by no means
minimise it in transmission. Hence again, the necessity to see Clare in
the evenings, and at her house, as before. And at the thought of her
cosy little upstairs sitting-room, with the books and the Persian rugs
and the softly-shaded lamp, he kindled to a new and exquisite
anticipation.
So, then, he would go up to Dinglay Fen alone that afternoon, wanting
Clare's company, no doubt, but willing to wait for it happily now that
it was to come to him so soon. Nor did he think that there was anything
especially Machiavellian in the plans he had decided upon.
IV
But he saw her sooner than that evening.
Towards midday the clouds suddenly wrapped up the sky and there began a
tremendous snowstorm that lasted most of the afternoon and prevented the
hockey matches. All hope of skating was thus dispelled, and Speed spent
the afternoon in the drawing-room at Lavery's, combining the marking of
exercise-books with the joyous anticipation of the evening. Then,
towards four o'clock, the sky cleared as suddenly as it had clouded
over, and a red sun shone obliquely over the white and trackless
quadrangle. There was a peculiar brightness that came into the room
through the window that overlooked the snow; a strange unwonted
brightness that kindled a tremulous desire in his heart, a desire
delicate and exquisite, a desire without command in it, but with a
fragile, haunting lure that was more irresistible than command. As he
stood by the window and saw the ethereal radiance of the snow, golden
almost in the rays of the low-hanging sun, he felt that he would
like to walk across the white meadows to Parminters. He wanted
something--something that was not in Millstead, something that, perhaps,
was not in the world.
He set out, walking briskly, facing the crisp wind till the tears came
into his eyes and rolled down his cold cheeks. Far beyond old Millstead
spire the sun was already sinking into the snow, and all the sky of the
west was shot with streams of pendulous fire. The stalks of the tallest
grasses were clotted with snow which the sun had tried hard to melt and
was now leaving to freeze stiff and crystalline; as the twilight crept
over the earth the wind blew colder and the film of snow lately fallen
made the path over the meadows hard and slippery with ice.
Then it was that he met Clare; in the middle of the meadows between
Millstead and Parminters, at twilight amidst a waste of untrod snow. Her
face was wonderfully lit with the reflection of the fading whiteness,
that his mind reacted to it as to the sudden brink was in her eyes.
He felt himself growing suddenly pale; he stopped, silent, without a
smile, as if frozen stiff by the sight of her.
And she said, half laughing: "Hello, Mr. Speed! You look unusually
grim...." Then she paused, and added in a different voice: "No--on
further observation I think you look ill.... Tell me, what's the
matter?"
He knew then that he loved her.
The revelation came on him so sharply, so acidly, with such overwhelming
and uncompromising directness, that his mind reacted to it as to the
sudden brink of a chasm. He saw the vast danger of his position. He saw
the stupendous fool he had been. He saw, as if some mighty veil had been
pulled aside, the stream of tragedy sweeping him on to destruction. And
he stopped short, all the manhood in him galvanised into instant
determination.
He replied, smiling: "I'm _feeling_ perfectly well, anyway. Beautiful
after the snowstorm, isn't it?"
"Yes."
It was so clear, so ominously clear that she would stop to talk to him
if he would let her.
Therefore he said, curtly: "I'm afraid it's spoilt all the chances of
skating, though.... Pity, isn't it? Well, I won't keep you in the
cold--one needs to walk briskly and keep on walking, doesn't one? Good
night!"
"Good night," she said simply.
Through the fast gathering twilight they went their several ways. When
he reached Parminters it was quite dark. He went to the _Green Man_ and
had tea in the cosy little firelit inn-parlour with a huge Airedale dog
for company. Somehow, he felt happier, now that he knew the truth and
was facing it. And by the time he reached Lavery's on the way home he
was treating the affair almost jauntily. After all, there was a very
simple and certain cure for even the most serious attack of the ailment
which he had diagnosed himself as possessing. He must not see Clare
again. Never again. No, not even once. How seriously he was taking
himself, he thought. Then he laughed, and wondered how he had been so
absurd. For it was absurd, incredibly absurd, to suppose himself even
remotely in love with Clare! It was unthinkable, impossible, no more to
be feared than the collapse of the top storey of Lavery's into the
basement. He was a fool, a stupid, self-analysing, self-suspecting fool.
He entered Lavery's scorning himself very thoroughly, as much for his
cowardly decision not to see Clare again as for his baseless suspicion
that he was growing fond of her.
CHAPTER THREE
I
Why was it that whenever he had had any painful scene with Helen the
yearning came over him to go and visit Clare, not to complain or to
confess or to ask advice, but merely to talk on the most ordinary topics
in the world? It was as if Helen drew out of him all the strength and
vitality he possessed, leaving him debilitated, and that he craved the
renewal of himself that came from Clare and from Clare alone.
The painful scenes came oftener now. They were not quarrels; they were
worse; they were strange, aching, devitalising dialogues in which Helen
cried passionately and worked herself into a state of nervous emotion
that dragged Speed against his will into the hopeless vortex. Often when
he was tired after the day's work the mere fervour of her passion would
kindle in him some poignant emotion, some wrung-out pity, that was, as
it were, the last shred of his soul; when he had burned that to please
her he was nothing but dry ashes, desiring only tranquillity. But her
emotional resources seemed inexhaustible. And when she had scorched up
the last combustible fragment of him there was nothing left for him to
do but to act a part.
When he realised that he was acting he realised also that he had been
acting for a long while; indeed, that he could not remember when he had
begun to act. Somehow, she lured him to it; made insatiable demands upon
him that could not be satisfied without it. His acting had become almost
a real part of him; he caught himself saying and doing things which came
quite spontaneously, even though they were false. The trait of artistry
in him made him not merely an actor but an accomplished actor; but the
strain of it was immense. And sometimes, when he was alone, he wished
that he might some time break under it, so that she might find out the
utmost truth.
Still, of course, it was Clare that was worrying her. She kept insisting
that he wanted Clare more than he wanted her, and he kept denying it,
and she obviously liked to hear him denying it, although she kept
refusing to believe him. And as a simple denial would never satisfy her,
he had perforce to elaborate his denials, until they were not so much
denials as elaborately protestant speeches in which energetically
expressed affection for her was combined with subtle disparagement of
Clare. As time went on her demands increased, and the kind of denial
that would have satisfied her a fortnight before was no longer
sufficient to pacify her for a moment. He would say, passionately: "My
little darling Helen, all I want is you--why do you keep talking about
Clare? I'm tired of hearing the name. It's Helen I want, my old darling
Helen." He became eloquent in this kind of speech.
But sometimes, in the midst of his acting an awful, hollow moment of
derision would come over him; a moment when he secretly addressed
himself: You hypocrite. You don't mean a word of all this! Why do you
say it? What good is it if it pleases her if it isn't true? Can you--are
you prepared to endure these nightly exhibitions of extempore
play-acting for ever? Mustn't the end come some day, and what is to be
gained by the postponement of it?
Then the hollow, dreadful, moment would leave him, and he would reply in
defence of himself: I love Helen, although the continual protestation of
it is naturally wearisome. If she can only get rid of the obsession
about Clare we shall live happily and without this emotional ferment.
Therefore, it is best that I should help her to get rid of it as much as
I can. And if I were to protest my love for her weakly I should hinder
and not help her.
Sometimes, after he had been disparaging Clare, a touch of real vibrant
emotion would make him feel ashamed of himself. And then, in a few
sharp, anguished sentences he would undo all the good that hours of
argument and protestation had achieved. He would suddenly defend Clare,
wantonly, obtusely, stupidly aware all the time of the work he was
undoing, yet, somehow, incapable of stopping the words that came into
his mouth. And they were not eloquent words; they were halting,
diffident, often rather silly. "Clare's all right," he would say
sometimes, and refuse to amplify or qualify. "I don't know why we keep
dragging her in so much. She's never done us any harm and I've nothing
against her."
"So. You love her."
"Love her? Rubbish! I don't love her. But I don't _hate_ her--surely you
don't expect me to do that!"
"No, I don't expect you to do that. I expect you to marry her, though,
some day."
"Marry her! Good God, what madness you talk, Helen! I don't want to
marry her, and if I did she wouldn't want to marry me! And besides, it
happens that I'm already married. That's an obstacle, isn't it?"
"There's such a thing as divorce."
"You can't get a divorce just because you want one."
"I know that."
"And besides, my dear Helen, who wants a divorce? Do you?"
"Do _you_?"
"Of course I don't."
"Kenneth, I know it seems to you that I'm terribly unreasonable. But it
isn't any satisfaction to me that you just don't _see_ Clare. What I
want is that you shan't want to see her."
"Well, I don't want to see her."
"That's a lie."
"Well--well--what's the good of me telling you I don't want to see her
if you can't believe me?"
"No good at all, Kenneth. That's why it's so awful."
He said then, genuinely: "Is it very awful, Helen?"
"Yes. You don't know what it's like to feel that all the time one's
happiness in the world is hanging by a thread. Kenneth, all the time I'm
watching you I can see Clare written in your mind. I _know_ you want
her. I know she can give you heaps that I can't give you. I know that
our marriage, was a tragic mistake. We're not suited to one another. We
make each other frightfully, frightfully miserable. More miserable than
there's any reason for, but still, that doesn't help. We're misfits,
somehow, and though we try ever so hard we shall never be any better
until we grow old and are too tired for love any more. Then we shall be
too disinterested to worry. It was _my_ fault, Kenneth--I oughtn't to
have married you. Father wanted me to, because your people have a lot of
money, but I only married you because I loved you, Kenneth. It was silly
of me, Kenneth, but it's the truth!"
"Ah!" So the mystery was solved. He softened to her now that he heard
her simple confession; he felt that he loved her, after all.
She went on, sadly: "I'm not going to stay with you, Kenneth. I'm not
going to ruin your life. You won't be able to keep me. I'd rather you be
happy and not have anything to do with me."
Then he began one of his persuasive speeches. The beginning of it was
sincere, but as he used up all the genuine emotion that was in him, he
drew more and more on his merely histrionic capacities. He pleaded, he
argued, he implored. Once the awful thought came to him: Supposing I
cried? Doubt as to his capacity to cry impressively decided him against
the suggestion.... And once the more awful thought came to him:
Supposing one of these times I do not succeed in patching things up?
Supposing we do agree to separate? Do I really want to win all the time
I am wrestling so hard for victory?
And at the finish, when he had succeeded once again, and when she was
ready for all the passionate endearments that he was too tired to take
pleasure in giving, he felt: This cannot last. It is killing me. It is
killing her too. God help us both....
II
One day he realised that he was a failure. He had had some disciplinary
trouble with the fifth form and had woefully lost his temper. There had
followed a mild sort of scene; within an hour it had been noised all
over the school, so that he knew what the boys and Masters were thinking
of when they looked at him. It was then that the revelation of failure
came upon him.
But, worst of all, there grew in him wild and ungovernable hates. He
hated the Head, he hated Pritchard, he hated Smallwood, he hated, most
intensely of all, perhaps, Burton. Burton was too familiar. Not that
Speed disliked familiarity; it was rather that in Burton's familiarity
he always diagnosed contempt. He wished Burton would leave. He was
getting too old.
They had a stupid little row about some trivial affair of house
discipline. Speed had found some Juniors playing hockey along the long
basement corridor. True that they were using only tennis balls;
nevertheless it seemed to Speed the sort of thing that had to be
stopped. He was not aware that "basement hockey" was a time-honoured
custom of Lavery's, and that occasional broken panes of glass were paid
for by means of a "whip round." If he had known that he would have made
no interference, for he was anxious not to make enemies. But it seemed
to him that this extempore hockey-playing was a mere breach of ordinary
discipline; accordingly he forbade it and gave a slight punishment to
the participators.
Back in his room there came to him within a little while, Burton,
eagerly solicitous about something or other.
"Well, what is it, Burton?" The mere sight of the shambling old fellow
enraged Speed now.
"If you'll excuse the libutty, sir. I've come on be'alf of a few of the
Juniors you spoke to about the basement 'ockey, sir."
"I don't see what business it is of yours, Burton."
"No, sir, it ain't any business of mine, that's true, but I thought
perhaps you'd listen to me. In fact, I thought maybe you didn't know
that it was an old 'ouse custom, sir, durin' the 'ockey term. I bin at
Millstead fifty-one year come next July, sir, an' I never remember an
'ockey term without it, sir. Old Mr. Hardacre used to allow it, an' so
did Mr. Lavery 'imself. In fact, some evenings, sir, Mr. Lavery used to
come down an' watch it, sir."
Speed went quite white with anger. He was furiously annoyed with himself
for having again trod on one of these dangerous places; he was also
furious with Burton for presuming to tell him his business. Also, a
slight scuffle outside the door of the room suggested to him that Burton
was a hired emissary of the Juniors, and that the latter were
eavesdropping at that very moment. He could not give way.
"I don't know why you think I should be so interested in the habits of
my predecessors, Burton," he said, with carefully controlled voice. "I'm
sure it doesn't matter to me in the least what Hardacre and Lavery used
to do. I'm housemaster at present, and if I say there must be no more
basement hockey then there must be no more. That's plain, isn't it?"
"Well, sir, I was only warning you--"
"Thanks, I don't require warning. You take too much on yourself,
Burton."
The old man went suddenly red. Speed was not prepared for the suddenness
of it. Burton exclaimed, hardly coherent in the midst of his
indignation: "That's the first time I've bin spoke to like that by a
housemaster of Lavery's! Fifty years I've bin 'ere an' neither Mr.
Hardacre nor Mr. Lavery ever insulted me to my face! They were
gentlemen, they were!"
"Get out!" said Speed, rising from his chair quickly. "Get out of here!
You're damnably impertinent! Get out!"
He approached Burton and Burton did not move. He struck Burton very
lightly on the shoulder. The old man stumbled against the side of the
table and then fell heavily on to the floor. Speed was passionately
frightened. He wondered for the moment if Burton were dead. Then Burton
began to groan. Simultaneously the door opened and a party of Juniors
entered, ostensibly to make some enquiry or other, but really, as Speed
could see, to find out what was happening.
"What d'you want?" said Speed, turning on them. "I didn't tell you to
come in. Why didn't you knock?"
They had the answer ready. "We did knock, sir, and then we heard a noise
as if somebody had fallen down and we thought you might be ill, sir."
Burton by this time had picked himself up and was shambling out of the
room, rather lame in one leg.
The days that followed were not easy ones for Speed. He knew he had been
wrong. He ought never to have touched Burton. People were saying "Fancy
hitting an old man over sixty!" Burton had told everybody about it. The
Common-Room knew of it. The school doctor knew of it, because Burton had
been up to the Sick-room to have a bruise on his leg attended. Helen
knew of it, and Helen rather obviously sided with Burton.
"You shouldn't have hit an old man," she said.
"I know I shouldn't," replied Speed. "I lost my temper. But can't you
see the provocation I had? Am I to put up with a man's impertinence
merely because he's old?"
"You're getting hard, Kenneth. You used to be kind to people, but you're
not kind now. You're _never_ kind now."
In his own heart he had to admit that it was true. He had given up being
kind. He was hard, ruthless, unmerciful, and God knew why, perhaps. Yet
it was all outside, he hoped. Surely he was not hard through and
through; surely the old Speed who was kind and gentle and whom everybody
liked, surely this old self of his was still there, underneath the
hardness that had come upon him lately!
He said bitterly: "Yes, I'm getting hard, Helen. It's true. And I don't
know the reason."
She supplied the answer instantly. "It's because of me," she said
quietly. "I'm making you hard. I'm no good for you. You ought to have
married somebody else."
"No, no!" he protested, vehemently. Then the old routine of argument,
protest, persuasion, and reconciliation took place again.
III
He made up his mind that he would crush the hardness in him, that he
would be the old Speed once more. All his troubles, so it seemed to him,
were the result of being no longer the old Speed. If he could only bring
to life again that old self, perhaps, after sufficient penance, he could
start afresh. He could start afresh with Lavery's, he could start afresh
with Helen; most of all perhaps, he could start afresh with himself. He
_would_ be kind. He would be the secret, inward man he wanted to be, and
not the half-bullying, half-cowardly fellow that was the outside of him.
He prayed, if he had ever prayed in his life, that he might accomplish
the resuscitation.
It was a dark sombrely windy evening in February; a Sunday evening. He
had gone into chapel with all his newly-made desires and determinations
fresh upon him; he was longing for the quiet calm of the chapel service
that he might cement, so to say, his desires and resolutions into a
sufficiently-welded programme of conduct that should be put into
operation immediately. Raggs was playing the organ, so that he was able
to sit undisturbed in the Masters' pew. The night was magnificently
stormy; the wind shrieked continually around the chapel walls and roof;
sometimes he could hear the big elm trees creaking in the Head's garden.
The preacher was the Dean of some-where-or-other; but Speed did not
listen to a word of his sermon, excellent though it might have been. He
was too busy registering decisions.
The next day he apologized to Burton, rather curtly, because he knew not
any other way. The old man was mollified. Speed did not know what to say
to him after he had apologized; in the end half-a-sovereign passed
between them.
Then he summoned the whole House and announced equally curtly that he
wished to apologize for attempting to break a recognised House custom.
"I've called you all together just to make a short announcement. When I
stopped the basement hockey I was unaware that it had been a custom in
Lavery's for a long while. In those circumstances I shall allow it to go
on, and I apologize for the mistake. The punishments for those who took
part are remitted. That's all. You may go now."
With Helen it was not so easy.
He said to her, on the same night, when the house had gone up to its
dormitories: "Helen, I've been rather a brute lately. I'm sorry. I'm
going to be different."
She said: "I wish I could be different too."
"Different? _You_ different? What do you mean?"
"I wish I could make you fond of me again." He was about to protest with
his usual eagerness and with more than his usual sincerity, but she held
up her hand to stop him. "Don't say anything!" she cried, passionately.
"We shall only argue. I don't want to argue any more. Don't say anything
at all, please, Kenneth!"
"But--Helen--why not?"
"Because there's nothing more to be said. Because I don't believe
anything that you tell me, and because I don't want to deceive myself
into thinking I do, any more."
"Helen!"
She went on staring silently into the fire, as usual, but when he came
near to her she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. "I don't
believe you love me, Kenneth. Goodness knows why I kiss you. I suppose
it's just because I like doing it, that's all. Now don't say anything to
me. Kiss me if you like, but don't speak. I hate you when you begin to
talk to me."
He laughed.
She turned on him angrily, suddenly like a tiger. "What are you laughing
at? I don't see any joke."
"Neither do I. But I wanted to laugh--for some reason. Oh, if I mustn't
talk to you, mayn't I even laugh? Is there nothing to be done except
kiss and be kissed?"
"You've started to talk. I hate you now."
"I shouldn't have begun to talk if you'd let me laugh."
"You're hateful."
"What--because I laughed? Don't you think it's rather funny that a man
may kiss his wife and yet not be allowed to talk to her?"
"I think it's tragic."
"Tragic things are usually funny if you're in the mood that I'm in."
"It's your own fault that you're in such a hateful mood."
"Is it my fault? I wasn't in the mood when I came into this room."
"Then it's my fault, I presume?"
"I didn't say so. God knows whose fault it is. But does it matter very
much?"
"Yes, I think it does."
He couldn't think of anything to say. He felt all the strength and
eagerness and determination and hope for the future go out of him and
leave him aching and empty. And into the void--not against his will, for
his will did not exist at the time--came Clare.
IV
Once again he knew that he loved her. A storm came over him, furious as
the storm outside! he knew that he loved and wanted her, passionately
this time, because his soul was aching. To him she meant the easing of
all the strain within him; he could not think how it had been possible
for him to go on so long without knowing it. Helen and he were like
currents of different voltages; but with Clare he would be miraculously
matched. For the first time in his life he recognised definitely and
simply that his marriage with Helen had been a mistake.
But what could he do? For with the realisation of his love for Clare
came the sudden, blinding onrush of pity for Helen, pity more terrible
than he had ever felt before; pity that made him sick with the keenness
of it. If he could only be ruthless and leave her with as few words and
as little explanation as many men left their wives! But he could not.
Somehow, in some secret and subtle way, he was tied to her. He knew that
he could never leave her. Something in their intimate relationship had
forged bonds that would always hold him to her, even though the spirit
of him longed to be free. He would go on living with her and pitying her
and making her and himself miserable.
He went out into the storm of wind for a few moments before going to
bed. Never, till then, had Lavery's seemed to desolate, so mightily
cruel. He walked in sheer morbidness of spirit to the pavilion steps
where he and Helen, less than a year ago, had thought themselves the
happiest couple in the world. There was no moonlight now, and the
pavilion was a huge dark shadow. Poor Helen--_poor_ Helen! He wished he
had never met her.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
The torture of his soul went on. He lost grip of his House; he was
unpopular now, and he knew it. Smallwood and other influential members
of the school openly cut him in the street. A great silence (so he often
imagined, but it could not have been really so) fell upon the Masters'
Common-Room whenever he entered it. Pritchard, so he heard, was in the
habit of making cheap jokes against him with his class. Even Clanwell
took him aside one evening and asked him why he had dropped the habit of
coming up to coffee. "Why don't you come up for a chat sometime?" he
asked, and from the queer look in his eyes Speed knew well enough what
the chat was likely to be about. "Oh, I'm busy," he excused himself. He
added: "Perhaps I'll drop in sometime, though." "Yes, do," said Clanwell
encouragingly. But Speed never did.
Then one morning Speed was summoned into the dark study. The Head smiled
and invited him to sit down. He even said, with ominous hospitality:
"Have a cigarette--um, no?" and pushed the cigarette-box an inch or so
away from him. Then he went on, unbuttoning the top button of his
clerical coat: "I hope--um--you will not think me--um--impertinent--if
I mention a matter which has--um--which has not reached my
ears--um--through an official channel. You had, I--um--I
believe,--an--um--altercation with one of the house-porters the other
day. Am I--am I right?"
"Yes, quite right."
"Well, now, Mr. Speed--such--um--affairs are rather undignified, don't
you think? I'm not--um--apportioning blame--oh, no, not in any way, but
I do--um, yes--I most certainly do think that a housemaster should avoid
such incidents if he can possibly do so. No--um--no personal reflection
on you at all, Mr. Speed--merely my advice to you, as a somewhat elderly
man to an--um, yes--to a friend. Yes, a friend. Perhaps I might add
more--um--significantly--to an--um--son-in-law."
He smiled a wide, sly smile. Speed clenched his hands on his knees. The
dark study grew almost intolerable. He felt he would like to take
Ervine's mottled neck in his hands and wring it--carefully and
calculatingly....
When he was outside the room, in the darkness between the inner and the
outer doors, his resentment rose to fever-pitch. He stopped, battling
with it, half inclined to re-enter the study and make a scene, yet
realising with the sane part of him that he could not better his
position by so doing. Merely as an outlet for tempestuous indignation,
however, the idea of returning to the fray attracted him, and he paused
in the darkness, arguing with himself. Then all at once his attention
was rivetted by the sound, sharp and clear, of Mrs. Ervine's voice. She
had entered the study from the other door, and he heard soft steps
treading across the carpet. "Did you tell him?" he heard her say. And
the Head's voice boomed back: "Yes, my dear. Um yes--I told him."
A grim, cautious smile crept over Speed's mouth. He put his ear to the
hinge of the inner door and listened desperately.
He heard again the voice of Mrs. Ervine. "Did you tell him he might have
to quit Lavery's at the end of the term?"
"I--um--well--I didn't exactly put it to him--so--um--so definitely. It
seemed to me there was no--um--no necessity. He may be all right, even
yet, you know.
"He won't. He's too young. And he's lost too much ground already."
"I always thought he was too--um--too youthful, my dear. But you
overruled my----"
"Well, and you know why I did, don't you? Oh, I've no patience with you.
Nothing's done unless I do it."
"My dear, I--um--I assure you----"
He heard footsteps approaching along the outside corridor and feared
that it might be people coming to see the Head. In that case they would
pull open the outer door and find him eavesdropping. That would never
do. He quietly pushed the outer door and emerged into the corridor. A
small boy, seeing him, asked timidly: "Is the Head in, sir?" Speed
replied grimly: "Yes, he's in, but he's busy at present."
After all, he had heard enough. Behind the Head, ponderous and archaic,
stood now the sinister figure of Mrs. Ervine, mistress of malevolent
intrigue. In a curious half-humorous, half-contemptuous sense, he felt
sorry for the Head. Poor devil!--everlastingly chained to Millstead,
always working the solemn, rhythmic treadmill, with a wife beside him as
sharp as a knife-edge.... Speed walked across to Lavery's, pale-faced
and smiling.
II
The Annual Athletic Sports.
It was raining hard. He stood by the tape, stopwatch in hand,
distributing measured encouragement and congratulation, and fulfilling
his allotted rôle of timekeeper. "Well run, Herbert," he managed to say
with a show of interest. "Not bad, indeed, sir ... eleven and two-fifths
seconds." ... "Well done, Roberts.... Hard luck, Hearnshaw--pity you
didn't sprint harder at the finish, eh? ... Herbert first, Roberts
second, Hearnshaw third."
The grass oozed with water and the cinder-track with blackish slime; he
shivered as he stood, and whenever he stooped the water fell over the
brim of his hat and blurred the print on his sports-programme. It was
hard to distinguish rain from perspiration on the faces of the runners.
The bicycles used in the slow-bicycle race lay in a dripping and rusting
pile against a tree-trunk; crystal raindrops hung despairingly from the
out-stretched tape. There seemed something unnecessarily, gratuitously,
even fatuously dismal about the entire procedure; the weight of
dismalness pressed heavily on him--heavily--heavily--and more heavily as
the afternoon crawled by. Yet he gave a ghastly smile as he marked a wet
note-book with a wet copying pencil and exclaimed: "Well run, Lister
_Secundus_. Four minutes and forty-two and a fifth seconds.... Next
race, please. All candidates for the Quarter-Mile Handicap. First
Heat.... Answer please.... Arnold, Asplin, Brooks, Carmichael,
Cavendish, Cawstone, Primus, Felling, Fyfield...."
But at last there came the end of the dreary afternoon, when grey dusk
began to fall somberly upon a grey world, when the last race had been
mournfully held, and his outdoor work was over. Mechanically he was
collecting into a pile the various impedimenta of the obstacle race; he
was alone, for the small, dripping crowd of sight-seers had gone over to
the other side of the pavilion to witness the putting of the weight.
Pritchard's job, he reflected. Pritchard's staccato tenor voice rose
above the murmur: "Thirty-eight feet four inches.... Excellent,
Robbins...." And then the scrape of the spade smoothing over the soft,
displaced mud, a sound that seemed to Speed to strike the note of utter
and inextinguishable misery.
Old Millstead bells began to chime the hour of five o'clock.
And then a voice quite near him said: "Well, Mr. Speed?"
He knew that voice. He turned round sharply. Clare!
Never did he forget the look of her at that moment. He thought
afterwards (though it could not have been more than imagination) that as
she spoke the downfalling rain increased to a torrent; he saw her
cheeks, pink and shining, and the water glistening on the edges of her
hair. She wore a long mackintosh that reached almost to her heels, and a
sou'wester pulled over her ears and forehead. But the poise of her as
she stood, so exquisitely serene with the rain beating down upon her,
struck some secret chord in his being which till that moment had been
dumb.
He dropped the sacks into a pool of water and stared at her in wistful
astonishment.
"You've dropped your things," she said.
He was staring at her so intently that he seemed hardly to comprehend
her words. The chord in him that had been struck hurt curiously, like a
muscle long unused. When at last his eyes fell to the sopping bundle at
his feet he just shrugged his shoulders and muttered: "Oh, _they_ don't
matter. I'll leave them." Then, recollecting that he had not yet given
her any greeting, he made some conventional remark about the weather.
Then she made another conventional remark about the weather.
Then he said, curiously: "We don't see so much of each other nowadays,
do we?"
To which she replied: "No. I wonder why? Are they overworking you?"
"Not that," he answered.
"Then I won't guess any other reasons."
He said jokingly: "I shall come down to the town and give you another of
those surprise visits one of these evenings."
The crowd were returning from watching the putting of the weight. She
made to leave him, saying as she did so: "_Yes_, do. You like a talk,
don't you?"
"Rather!" he exclaimed, almost boyishly, as she went away.
_Almost boyishly_! Even a moment of her made a difference in him.
III
That evening, for the first time in his life, he was "ragged." He was
taking preparation in the Big Hall. As soon as the School began to enter
he could see that some mischief was on foot. Nor was it long in
beginning to show itself. Hardly had the last-corner taken his seat when
a significant rustle of laughter at the rear of the Hall warned him that
danger was near. He left his seat on the rostrum and plunged down the
aisle to the place whence the laughter had come. More laughter.... He
saw something scamper swiftly across the floor, amidst exclamations of
feigned alarm. Someone had let loose a mouse.
He was furious with anger. Nothing angered him more than any breach of
discipline, and this breach of discipline was obviously an insult to him
personally. They had never "ragged" him before; they were "ragging" him
now because they disliked him. He saw the faces of all around him
grinning maliciously.
"Anyone who laughs has a hundred lines."
A sharp brave laugh from somewhere--insolently defiant.
"Who was it that laughed then?"
No answer.
Then, amidst the silence, another laugh, a comic, lugubriously pitched
laugh that echoed weirdly up to the vaulted roof.
He was white now--quite white with passion.
"Was that you, Slingsby?"
A smart spot! It _was_ Slingsby, and Slingsby, recognising the rules of
civilised warfare even against Speed, replied, rather sheepishly: "Yes,
sir."
"A thousand lines and detention for a week!"
The school gasped a little, for the punishment was sufficiently
enormous. Evidently Speed was not to be trifled with. There followed a
strained silence for over ten minutes, and at last Speed went back to
his official desk feeling that the worst was over and that he had
successfully quelled the rebellion. Then, quite suddenly, the whole
building was plunged into darkness.
He rose instantly shouting: "Who tampered with those switches?"
He had hardly finished his query when pandemonium began. Desk-lids fell;
electric torches prodded their rays upon scenes of wild confusion; a
splash of ink fell on his neck as he stood; voices shrieked at him on
all sides. "Who had a fight with Burton?" "Hit one your own size." "Oh,
Kenneth, meet me at the pavilion steps!" "Three cheers for the
housemaster who knocked the porter down!" He heard them all. Somebody
called, sincerely and without irony: "Three cheers for old Burton!"--and
these were lustily given. Somebody grabbed hold of him by the leg; he
kicked out vigorously, careless in his fury what harm he did. The sickly
odour of sulphuretted hydrogen began to pervade the atmosphere.
He heard somebody shriek out: "Not so much noise, boys--the Head'll come
in!" And an answer came: "Well, he won't mind much."
He stood there in the darkness for what seemed an age. He was petrified,
not with fear, but with a strange mingling of fury and loathing. He
tried to speak, and found he had no voice; nor, anyhow, could he have
made himself heard above the din.
Something hit him a terrific blow on the forehead. He was dazed. He
staggered back, feeling for his senses. He wondered vaguely who had hit
him and what he had been hit with. Probably a heavy book.... The pain
seemed momentarily to quench his anger, so that he thought: This is not
ordinary "ragging." They hate me. They detest me. They want to hurt me
if they can.... He felt no anger for them now, only the dreadfulness of
being hated so much by so many people at once.
He must escape somehow. They might kill him in the dark there if they
found him. He suddenly made his decision and plunged headlong down the
centre aisle towards the door. How many boys he knocked down or trampled
on or struck with his swinging arms as he rushed past he never knew, but
in another moment he was outside, with the cool air of the cloisters
tingling across his bruised head and the pandemonium in the Hall
sounding suddenly distant in his ears.
In the cloisters he met the Head, walking quickly along with gown
flying in the wind.
In front of Speed he stopped, breathless and panting. "Um--um--what is
the matter, Mr. Speed? Such an--um--terrible noise--I could--um--hear it
at my dinner-table--and--um--yourself--what has happened to you? Are you
ill? Your head is covered with--um--blood.... What is all the commotion
about?"
Speed said, with crisp clearness: "Go up into the Hall and find out."
And he rushed away from the Head, through the echoing cloisters, and
into Lavery's. He washed here, in the public basins, and tied a
handkerchief round the cut on his forehead. He did not disturb Helen,
but left his gown on one of the hooks in the cloak-room and went out
again into the dark and sheltering night, hatless and coatless, and with
fever in his heart. The night was bitterly cold, but he did not feel it;
he went into the town by devious ways, anxious to avoid being seen; when
he was about half-way the parish clock chimed eight. He felt his head;
his handkerchief was already damp on the outside; it must have been a
deep cut.
IV
"Mr. Speed!" she said, full of compassion. A tiny lamp in the corridor
illumined his bandaged head as he walked in. "What on earth has happened
to you? Can you walk up all right?"
"Yes," he answered, with even a slight laugh. The very presence of her
gave him reassurance. He strode up the steps into the sitting-room and
stood in front of the fire. She followed him and stared at him for a
moment without speaking. Then she said, almost unconcernedly: "Now you
mustn't tell me anything till you've been examined. That looks rather a
deep cut. Now sit down in that chair and let me attend to you. Don't
talk."
He obeyed her, with a feeling in his heart of ridiculously childish
happiness. He remembered when Helen had once bade him not talk, and how
the demand had then irritated him. Curious that Clare could even copy
Helen exactly and yet be tremendously, vitally different!
She unwound the bandage, washed the cut, and bandaged it up again in a
clean and workmanlike manner. The deftness of her fingers fascinated
him; he gazed on them as they moved about over his face; he luxuriated
amongst them, as it were.
At the finish of the operation she gave that sharp instant laugh which,
even after hearing it only a few times, he had somehow thought
characteristic of her. "You needn't worry," she said quietly, and in the
half-mocking tone that was even more characteristic of her than her
laugh. "You're not going to die. Did you think you were? Now tell me how
it happened."
"You'll smile when I tell you. I was taking prep, and they ragged me.
Somebody switched off the lights and somebody else must have thrown a
book at me. That's all."
"That's all? It's enough, isn't it? And what made you think I should
smile at such an affair?"
"I don't know. In a certain sense it's, perhaps, a little funny....
D'you know, lately I've had a perfectly overwhelming desire to laugh at
things that other people wouldn't see anything funny in. The other night
Helen told me not to talk to her because she couldn't believe a word I
said, but she didn't mind if I kissed her. I laughed at that--I couldn't
help it. And now, when I think of an hour ago with all the noise and
commotion and flash-lights and stink-bombs and showers of ink--oh, God,
it was damned funny!"
He burst into gusts of tempestuous, half-hysterical laughter.
"Stop laughing!" she ordered. She added quietly: "Yes, you look as if
you've been in an ink-storm--it's all over your coat and collar. What
made them rag you?"
"They hate me."
"Why?"
He pondered, made suddenly serious, and then said: "God knows."
She did not answer for some time. Then she suddenly went over to the
china cupboard and began taking out crockery. Once again his eyes had
something to rivet themselves upon; this time her small, immensely
capable hands as she busied herself with the coffee-pot. "And you
thought I should find it amusing?" she said, moving about the whole
time. As she continued with the preparations she kept up a running
conversation. "Well, I _don't_ find it amusing. I think it's very
serious. You came here last summer term and at first you were well
liked, fairly successful, and happy. Now, two terms later, you're
apparently detested, unsuccessful, and--well, not so happy as you were,
eh? What's been the cause of it all? You say God knows. Well, if He does
know, He won't tell you, so you may as well try to find out for
yourself."
And she went on: "I don't want to rub it in. Forgive me if I am doing
so."
Something in the calm kindliness of her voice made him suddenly bury his
head in his hands and begin to sob. He gasped, brokenly: "All right....
Clare.... But the future.... Oh, God--is it _all_ black? ...
What--_what_ can I do, Clare?"
She replied, immensely practical: "You must control yourself. You're
hysterical--laughing one minute and crying the next. Coffee will be
ready in a while--it'll quiet your nerves. And the future will be all
right if only you won't be as big a fool as you have been."
Then he smiled. "You _do_ tell me off, don't you?" he said.
"No more than you need.... But we're talking too much. I don't want you
to talk a lot--not just yet. Sit still while I play the piano to you."
She played some not very well-known composition of Bach, and though when
she began he was all impatience to talk to her, he found himself later
on becoming tranquil, perfectly content to listen to her as long as she
cared to go on. She played quite well, and with just that robust
unsentimentality which Bach required. He wondered if she had been clever
enough to know that her playing would tranquillise him.
When she had finished, the coffee was ready and they had a cosy little
armchair snack intermingled with conversation that reminded him of his
Cambridge days. He would have been perfectly happy if he had not been
burdened with such secrets. He wanted to tell her everything--to show
her all his life. And yet whenever he strove to begin the confession she
twisted the conversation very deftly out of his reach.
At last he said: "I've got whole heaps to tell you, Clare. Why don't you
let me begin?"
She looked ever so slightly uncomfortable.
"Do you _really_ want to begin?"
"Yes."
"Begin then."
But it was not so easy for him to begin after her straightforward order
to do so. She kept her brown eyes fixed unswervingly on him the whole
time, as if defying him to tell anything but the utterest truth. He
paused, stammered, and then laughed uncomfortably.
"There's a lot to tell you, and it's not easy."
"Then don't trouble. I'm not asking you to."
"But I want to."
She said, averting her eyes from him for a moment: "It's not really that
you want to begin yourself, it's that you want _me_ to begin, isn't it?"
Then he said: "Yes, I wanted you to begin if you would. I wanted you to
ask me a question you used to ask me?"
"What's that?"
"Whether I'm happy ... or not. I always used to say yes, and since that
answer has become untrue you've never asked me the question."
"Perhaps because I knew the answer had become untrue."
"You knew? You _knew_! Tell me, what did you know? What do you know
now?"
She said, with a curious change in the quality of her voice: "My dear
man, I _know_. I understand you. Haven't you found out that? I know,
I've known for a long time that you haven't been happy."
Suddenly he was in the thick of confession to her. He was saying, almost
wildly, in his eagerness: "Helen and I--we don't get on well together."
Then he stopped, and a wild, ecstatic fear of what he was doing rose
suddenly to panic-point and then was lulled away by Clare's eternally
calm eyes. "She doesn't understand me--in fact--I don't really think we
either of us understand the other."
"No?" she said, interrogatively, and he shook his head slowly and
replied: "I think that perhaps explains--chiefly--why I am unhappy.
We--Helen and I--we don't know quite what--what to do with each other.
Do you know what I mean? We don't exactly quarrel. It's more that we try
so hard to be kind that--that it hurts us. We are cruel to each
other.... Oh, not actually, you know, but in a sort of secret inside
way.... Oh, Clare, Clare, the truth of it is, I can't bear her, and she
can't bear me!"
"Perhaps I know what you mean. But she loves you?"
"Oh, yes, she loves me."
"And you love her?"
He looked her straight in the eyes and slowly shook his head.
"I used to. But I don't now. It's awful--awful--but it's the honest
truth."
It seemed to him that his confession had reached the vital crest and
that all else would be easy and natural now that he had achieved thus
far. He went on: "Clare, I've tried to make myself think I love her.
I've tried all methods to be happy with her. I've given in to her in
little matters and big matters to try to make her happy, I've isolated
myself from other people just to please her, I've offered
anything--_everything_ to give her the chance of making me love her as I
used to! But it's not been a bit of use."
"Of course it hasn't."
"Why of course?"
"Because you can't love anybody by trying. Any more than you can stop
loving anybody by trying... Do you know, I've never met anybody who's
enraged me as much as you have."
"Enraged you?"
"Yes. What right have I to be enraged with you, you'll say, but never
mind that. I've been enraged with you because you've been such a
continual disappointment ever since I've known you. This is a time for
straight talking, isn't it? So don't be offended. When you first came to
Millstead you were just a jolly schoolboy--nothing more, though you
probably thought you were--you were brimful of schoolboyish ideals and
schoolboyish enthusiasms. Weren't you? Nobody could help liking you--you
were so--so _nice_--_nice_ is the word, isn't it?"
"You're mocking me."
"Not at all. I mean it. You _were_ nice, and I liked you very much.
Compared with the average fussily jaded Master at a public-school you
were all that was clean and hopeful and energetic. I wondered what would
become of you. I wondered whether you'd become a sarcastic devil like
Ransome, a vulgar little counter-jumper like Pritchard, or a beefy,
fighting parson like Clanwell. I knew that whatever happened you
wouldn't stay long as you were. But I never thought that you'd become
what you are. Good God, man, you _are_ a failure, aren't you?"
"What's the good of rubbing it in?"
"This much good--that I want you to be quite certain of the depth you've
fallen to. A man of your sort soon forgets his mistakes. That's why he
makes so many of them twice over."
"Well--admitting that I am a failure, what then? What advice have you to
offer me?"
"I advise you to leave Millstead."
"When?"
"At the end of the term."
"And where shall I go?"
"Anywhere except to another school."
"What shall I do?"
"Anything except repeat your mistakes."
"And Helen?"
"Take her with you."
"But she is one of my mistakes."
"I know that. But you've got to put up with it."
"And if I can't?"
"Then I don't know."
He suddenly plunged his head into his hands and was silent. Her ruthless
summing-up of the situation calmed him, made him ready for the future,
but filled that future with a dreariness that was awful to contemplate.
After a while he rose, saying: "Well, I suppose you're right. I'll go
back now. God knows what'll happen to me between now and the end of
term. But I guess I'll manage somehow. Anyway, I'm much obliged for your
first-aid. Good-bye--don't trouble to let me out--I know how the door
works."
"I want to lock up after you're gone," she said.
In the dark lobby the sudden terror of what he had done fell on him like
a crushing weight. He had told Clare that he did not love Helen. And
then, following upon that, came a new and more urgent terror--he had not
told Clare that it was she whom he loved. What was the use of telling
her the one secret without the other?--Perhaps he would never see Clare
again. This might be his last chance. If he did not take it or make it
the torture of his self-reproaching would be unendurable.
"You came without any coat and hat," she observed. "Let me lend you my
raincoat--it's no different from a man's."
He perceived instantly that if he borrowed it he would have an excuse
for visiting her again in order to return it. And perhaps then, more
easily than now, he could tell her the secret that was almost bursting
his heart.
"Thanks," he said, gratefully, and as she helped him into the coat she
said: "Ask the boy to bring it back here when he calls for the orders in
the morning."
He could have cried at her saying that. The terror came on him
feverishly, intolerably, the terror of leaving her, of living the rest
of life without a sight or a knowledge of her. He could not bear it; the
longing was too great--he could not put it away from him. And she was
near him for the last time, her hands upon his arms as she helped him
into the coat. She did not want him to call again. It was quite plain.
He had to speak.
He said, almost at the front door: "Clare, do you know the real reason
why I don't love Helen any more?"