THE EVE OF OFFICE
Thenceforward the career of Jan was that of the public-school cricketer
who is less readily remembered as anything else. One forgets that he had
to rush out to early school like other people, and even work harder than
most to keep afloat in form. It takes a dip into bound volumes of the
Mag. to assure one that “solid work in the bullies” (of the old hybrid
game) eventually landed him into the Fifteen, and that he was placed
more than once in the Mile and the Steeplechase without ever winning
either. Those were not Jan’s strong points, though he took them no less
seriously at the time. They kept him fit during the winter, but not
through them would his name be alive to-day. Some of his bowling
analyses, on the other hand, are as unforgettable as the date of the
Conquest; and it is with his Eleven cap pulled down over his eyes, and a
grim twinkle under the peak, that the mind’s eye sees him first and
almost last.
His second year in the Eleven was nearly—not quite—as successful as
his first. He took even more Haileyburian and Reptonian wickets, but
experienced batsmen who came down with other teams made sometimes almost
light of that clockwork break from the off. The cheery Swiller (who of
course owed his nickname to a notorious teetotalism) did not again fail
to compile his habitual century for the Old Boys. It was a hotter
summer, and the wickets just a trifle faster than those after Jan’s own
heart.
Still he had a fine season, and a marvellously happy one. He was now
somebody on the side; not a mere upstart bowler of no previous status,
rather out of it with the Eleven off the field. The new captain was a
very nice fellow in one of the hill houses; he not only gave Jan his
choice of ends on all occasions, and an absolute say in the placing of
his field, but took his best bowler’s opinion on the others and
consulted him on all sorts of points. Jan found himself in a position of
high authority without the cares of office, and the day came when he
appreciated the distinction.
Stratten and Jellicoe were in the team for their second and last year,
and the All Ages cup remained undisturbed on the baize shelf in Heriot’s
hall. Crabtree, moreover, was still the captain of a house in which his
word was martial law. But he also was leaving; all the bigwigs were,
except Jan himself. And after the holidays Heriot had to face a younger
house than for some years past, with a certain colourless præpostor in
command till Christmas, and only old Chips Carpenter to succeed him.
Chips was now a præpostor himself, being actually in the Upper Sixth,
thanks to the deliberately modest standard of learning throughout the
school. He could write Latin verses against the best of them, however,
and he now edited the precious periodical to which he had so long
contributed. This gave him his own standing in the school, while a
really genial temperament was no longer discounted by the somewhat
assertive piety of his earlier youth. And yet it was not only a touch of
priggishness that Chips had outgrown; the old enthusiasm was often
missing; it was his bad patch of boyhood, and he had struck it rather
later than most, and was taking himself to heart under all the jokes and
writings of this period.
Chips was still in no eleven at all; he thought he ought to have been in
one on the Middle, at any rate, and perhaps he was right. He was a very
ardent wicket-keeper, who had incurred a certain flogging in his
saintliest days by cutting a detention when engaged to keep wicket on
the Lower. In the winter months, with his new _Lillywhite_ usually
concealed about his person, he used still to dream of runs from his own
unhandy bat; but in his heart he must have known his only place in the
game, as student and trumpeter of glories beyond his grasp. Was he not
frank about it in his lament for the holiday task he had failed to learn
“in the holidays, while there was time?”
“But 'tis no use lamenting. What _is_ done
You couldn’t undo if you tried....
O, if only they’d set us some _Wisden_,
Or _Lillywhite’s Guide_!”
Many fellows liked old Chips nowadays, and more took a charitable view
of his writings; but few would have picked him out as a born leader of
men, and he certainly had no practice in the little dormitory at the top
of the house. It was rather by way of being a cripples’ ward, for
Carpenter was still debarred from football by his bronchitis, and the
small boy Eaton, who was not so young as he looked, but an amusing
rogue, had trumped up a heart of the type imputed to Jan Rutter when he
fainted in the Spook’s mathematical. Eaton was a shameless “sloper,” but
he had heaps of character, and he saved the prospective captain of the
house some embarrassment by leaving at Christmas.
Chips had taken to photography as a winter pursuit; and so rare was the
hobby in those days that for some time he was the only photographer in
the school. Eaton accompanied him on many a foray, and swung the tripod
while Chips changed the case containing the camera from hand to hand.
They obtained excellent negatives of some of the delightful old churches
in the neighbourhood, including the belfry tower at Burston, seen
through its leafless beeches, and the alabaster monument in the chancel
at Stoke Overton. But by far the most popular success was the speaking
picture of Mr. and Mrs. Maltby, on the doorstep of their famous resort
in the market-place; to satisfy the vast demand for that masterpiece,
the præpostor was placed in a bit of a quandary, but young Eaton
borrowed the negative and did a roaring trade at sixpence a print.
In the meantime Evan Devereux had been elected Captain of Games: a most
important officer in the Easter term, the games in question being
nothing of the kind, except in an Olympic sense, but just the ordinary
athletic sports. The Captain of Games arranged the heats, fixed the
times, acted as starter, superintended everything and exercised over all
concerned a control that just suited Evan. He proved himself a born
master of ceremonies, with a jealous eye for detail, but a little apt to
fuss and strut at the last moment on a course cleared of the common
herd. He dressed well, and had a pointed way of taking off his hat to
the master’s ladies. There were those, of course, who crudely described
his mannerisms as mere “roll”; but on the whole it would have been hard
to find a keener or more capable Captain of Games.
The office was usually held by a member of the Eleven or of the Fifteen.
Evan was in neither yet, though on the edge of both. On the other hand,
he was very high in the Upper Sixth; for he had lost neither his
facility for acquiring knowledge, nor his inveterate horror of laying
himself open to rebuke.
It is at first sight a little odd that such a blameless boy should ever
have made a friend of one Sandham, a big fellow low down in the school,
and in another house. Sandham, however, was a handsome daredevil of
strong but questionable character, and it suited him to have a leading
præpostor for his friend. One hesitates to add that he was a younger son
of a rather prominent peer, lest the statement be taken as in any way
accounting for Evan’s side of the friendship. It is only the thousandth
boy, however, who troubles himself to think twice about another’s
fellow’s people, high or low. Of all beings boys are in this respect the
least snobbish, and Evan Devereux was of all schoolboys the last to
embody an exception to that or any other general rule. Sandham was not
the only fellow whose hereditary quality was denoted by a “Mr.” in the
list; the others were nobodies in the school, and neither Evan nor
anybody else made up to them. But to the aristocracy of athletics he
could bow as low as his neighbour, and his friend Sandham was an athlete
of the first water. Half-back in the fifteen, as good a bat as there was
in the Eleven, and a conjuror at extra cover, the gifted youth must
needs signalise his friend’s Captaincy of Games by adding the Athletic
Championship to his bag of honours. Winner of the Steeplechase, Hurdles,
Hundred-yards, Quarter-mile and Wide-jump, not only was Sandham Champion
but the rest were nowhere in the table of marks. It must be added that
he wore his halo with a rakish indifference which lent some colour to
the report that “Mr.” Sandham had been removed from Eton before old
Thrale gave him another chance.
“He’s a marvellous athlete, whatever else he is,” said Chips to Jan, on
the last Sunday of the Easter term.
“I’m blowed if I know what else he is,” replied Jan, “but I should be
sorry to see quite so much of him if I were Evan.”
“Not you,” cried Chips, “if you were Evan! You’d jolly well see all you
could of anybody at the top of the tree!”
“Look here, Chips, dry up! Evan’s pretty near the top himself.”
“Are you going to stick him in the Eleven?”
“If he’s good enough, and I hope he will be.”
“Of course it’s expected of you.”
“Who expects it?”
“Sandham for one, and Devereux himself for another. Didn’t you see how
they stopped to make up to you when they overtook us just now?”
“I don’t know what you mean. Evan’s a friend of mine, and of course I’ve
seen a lot of Sandham. They only asked if I was going to get any
practice in the holidays.”
“They took good care to let you know they were going to have some. So
Evan’s going to stay with Sandham’s people, is he?”
“It was Sandham said that.”
“And they’re going to have a professor down from Lord’s!”
“Well, they might be worse employed.”
“They might so. I should rather like to know what they’re up to at this
very minute.”
The scene was one of the many undulating country roads that radiated
from the little town like tentacles. Chips and Jan were strolling lazily
between the jewelled hedge-rows of early April; the other two had
overtaken them rather suddenly, walking very fast, and had stopped, as
if on second thoughts, to make perfunctory conversation. Evan had turned
rather red, as he still would in a manner that must have been a trial to
him. There had followed the few words about the holidays to which Chips
had alluded, but in which he had not joined. He also had his old faults
in various stages of preservation; touchiness was one of them, jealousy
another. But his last words had been called forth by nothing more or
worse than a fresh sight of Evan and Sandham on the sky-line, climbing a
gate into a field.
“I votes we go some other way,” said Jan. “I don’t like spying on chaps,
even when it’s only a case of a cigarette.”
“No more do I,” his friend agreed, thoughtfully. And another way they
went. But the conversation languished between them, until rather
suddenly Carpenter ran his arm through Jan’s.
“Isn’t it beastly to be so near the end of our time, Tiger? Only one
more term!”
“It is a bit,” assented Jan, lukewarmly. “I know you feel it, but I
often think I’d have done better to have left a year ago.”
Chips looked round at him as they walked.
“And you Captain of Cricket!”
“That’s why,” said Jan, in the old grim way.
“But, my dear chap, it’s by far the biggest honour you can possibly have
here!”
“I know all that, Chipsy; but there’s a good deal more in it than honour
and glory. There’s any amount to do. You’re responsible for all sorts of
things. Bruce used to tell me last year. It isn’t only writing out the
order, nor yet changing your bowling and altering the field.”
“No; you’ve first got to catch your Eleven.”
“And not only that, but all the other elevens on the Upper, and captains
for both the other grounds. You’re responsible for all the lot, and
you’ve got to make up your mind that you can’t please everybody.”
Chips said nothing. Some keen præpostor was invariably made Captain of
the Middle. Chips would have loved the unexalted post; but as he had
never been in any eleven at all, even that distinction would be denied
him by a rigid adherence to tradition. And evidently Jan had no
intention of favouring his friends, if indeed this particular idea had
crossed his mind.
“One ought to know every fellow in the school by sight,” he continued.
“But I don’t know half as many as I did. Do you remember how you were
always finding out fellows’ names, Chips, our first year or so? You
didn’t rest till you could put a name to everybody above us in the
school; but I doubt we neither of us take much stock of the crowd
below.”
“I find the house takes me all my time, and you must feel the same way
about the Eleven, only much more so. By Jove, but I’d give all I’m ever
likely to have on earth to change places with you!”
“And I’m not sure that I wouldn’t change places with you. Somehow things
always look different when you really get anywhere,” sighed Jan,
discovering an eternal truth for himself.
“But to captain the Eleven!”
“To make a good captain! That’s the thing.”
“But you will, Jan; look at your bowling.”
“It’s not everything. You’ve got to drive your team; it’s no good only
putting your own shoulder to the wheel. And they may be a difficult team
to drive.”
“Sandham may. And if Devereux——”
“Sandham’s not the only one,” interrupted Jan, who was not talking
gloomily, but only frankly as he felt. “There’s Goose and
Ibbotson—who’re in already—and Chilton who’s bound to get in. A
regular gang of them, and I’m not in it, and never was.”
“But you’re in another class!” argued Carpenter, forgetting himself
entirely in that affectionate concern for a friend which was his finest
point. “You’re one of the very best bowlers there ever was in the
school, Jan.”
“I may have been. I’m not now. But I might be again if I could get that
leg-break.”
“You shall practise it every day on our lawn when you come to us these
holidays.”
“Thanks, old chap. Everybody says it’s what I want. That uncle of mine
said so the very first match we played together, when he was home again
last year.”
“Well, he ought to know.”
And the conversation declined to a highly technical discussion in which
Chips Carpenter, the rather puny præpostor who could never get into any
eleven, held his own and more; for the strange fact was that he still
knew more about cricket than the captain of the school team. At heart,
indeed, he was the more complete cricketer of the two; for Jan was just
a natural left-hand bowler, only too well aware of his limitations, and
in some danger of losing his gift through the laborious cultivation of
quite another knack which did not happen to be his by nature.
The trouble had begun about the time of the last Old Boys’ Match, when
Jan had heard more than enough of the break which was not then at his
command; egged on by Captain Ambrose in the summer holidays, he had
tried it with some success in village cricket, and had thought about it
all the winter. Now especially it was the question uppermost in his
mind. Was he going to make the ball break both ways this season? The
point mattered more than the constitution of the Eleven, Evan’s
inclusion in it (much as that was to be desired), or the personal
relations of the various members. If only Jan himself could bowl better
than ever, or even up to his first year’s form, then he would carry the
whole side to victory on his shoulders.