The Lonely Unicorn: A Novel
by Alec Waugh · English · Gutenberg #43952 · 534,671 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Lonely Unicorn: A Novel
Author: Alec Waugh
Release date: October 16, 2013 [eBook #43952]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43952
Credits: Produced by Dianna Adair, Marc-André Seekamp and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONELY UNICORN: A NOVEL ***
Produced by Dianna Adair, Marc-André Seekamp and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
THE LONELY UNICORN
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
_FICTION_
THE LOOM OF YOUTH
PLEASURE
_STUDIES_
THE PRISONERS OF MAINZ
PUBLIC SCHOOL LIFE
[_In September_
_VERSE_
RESENTMENT: POEMS
[_Out of Print_
THE
LONELY UNICORN
A NOVEL
BY
ALEC WAUGH
AUTHOR OF "THE LOOM OF YOUTH"
[Illustration]
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST MARTIN'S STREET
MDCCCCXXII
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
TO MY FRIEND
CLIFFORD BAX
CONTENTS
PART I.--THE OPENING ROUND
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TWO HAPHAZARDS 11
II. THE OUTCOME 20
III. RALPH AND APRIL 27
IV. A KISS 37
V. A POTENTIAL DIPLOMAT 45
VI. APRIL'S LOOKING-GLASS 58
VII. A SORRY BUSINESS 65
PART II.--THE RIVAL FORCES
VIII. A FORTUNATE MEETING 93
IX. HOGSTEAD 105
X. YOUNG LOVE 117
XI. THE ROMANCE OF VARNISH 137
XII. MARSTON & MARSTON 150
XIII. LILITH OF OLD 157
XIV. THE TWO CURRENTS 175
PART III.--THE FIRST ENCOUNTERS
XV. SUCCESS 187
XVI. LILITH AND MURIEL 217
PART IV.--ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
XVII. THREE YEARS 225
XVIII. THREE DAYS 232
XIX. THE LONELY UNICORN 253
XX. THERE'S ROSEMARY 269
XXI. THE SHREDDING OF THE CHRYSALIS 276
XXII. AN END AND A BEGINNING 292
PART I
THE OPENING ROUND
CHAPTER I
TWO HAPHAZARDS
It began, I suppose, on a certain September afternoon, when Roland
Whately travelled back to school by the three-thirty train from
Waterloo. There were two afternoon trains to Fernhurst: one left
London at three-thirty and arrived at a quarter to six; the other left
at four-eighteen, stopped at every station between Basingstoke and
Salisbury, waited twenty-five minutes at Templecombe for a connection,
and finally reached Fernhurst at eight-twenty-three. It is needless
to state that by far the greater part of the school travelled down by
the four-eighteen--who for the sake of a fast train and a comfortable
journey would surrender forty-eight minutes of his holidays?--and
usually, of course, Roland accompanied the many.
This term, however, the advantages of the fast train were considerable.
He was particularly anxious to have the corner bed in his dormitory.
There was a bracket above it where he could place a candle, by the
light of which he would be able to learn his rep. after "lights out."
If he were not there first someone else would be sure to collar it. And
then there was the new study at the end of the passage; he wanted to
get fresh curtains and probably a gas mantle: when once the school was
back it was impossible, for at least a week, to persuade Charlie, the
school custos, to attend to an odd job like that. And so he travelled
back by a train that contained, of the three hundred boys who were on
the Fernhurst roll, only a dozen fags and three timid Sixth-Formers who
had distrusted the animal spirits of certain powerful and irreverent
Fifth-Formers. On the first day, as on the last, privilege counts for
little, and it is unpleasant to pass four hours under the seat of a
dusty railway carriage.
It was the first time that Roland had been able to spend the first
evening of a term in complete leisure. He walked quietly up to the
house, went down to the matron's room and consulted the study and
dormitory lists. He found that he was on the Sixth-Form table, had
been given the study for which he had applied, and was in the right
dormitory. He bagged the bed he wanted, and took his health certificate
round to the Chief's study.
"Ah, Whately, this is very early. Had a good holiday?"
"Yes, thank you, sir."
"Feeling ready for football? They tell me you've an excellent chance of
getting into the XV.?"
"I hope so, sir."
He went over to the studies and inspected the gas fittings. Yes, he
would certainly need a new mantle, and he must try to see if Charlie
couldn't fit him up with a new curtain. After a brief deliberation
Charles decided that he could; a half-crown changed hands, and as Roland
strolled back from the lodge the Abbey clock struck half-past six. Over
two hours to prayers. He had done all his jobs, and there didn't seem
to be a soul in the place. He began to wonder whether, after all, it
had been worth his while to catch that early train: it had been a dull
journey, two hours in the company of three frightened fags, outhouse
fellows whom he didn't know, and who had huddled away in a corner of
the carriage and talked in whispers. If, on the other hand, he had
waited for the four-eighteen he would at that moment be sitting with
five or six first-class fellows, talking of last year's rags, of the
new prefects, and the probable composition of the XV. He would be much
happier there. And as for the dormitory and study, well, he'd have
probably been able to manage if he had hurried from the station. He had
done so a good many times before. Altogether he had made a bit of an ass
of himself. An impetuous fool, that was what he was.
And for want of anything better to do, he mouched down to Ruffer's, the
unofficial tuck-shop. There was no one he knew in the front of the shop,
so he walked into the inside room and found, sitting in a far corner,
eating an ice, Howard, one of the senior men in Morgan's.
"Hullo!" he said. "So you've been ass enough to come down by the early
train as well?"
"Yes, I was coming up from Cornwall, and it's the only way I could make
the trains fit in. A bad business. There's nothing to do but eat: come
and join me in an ice."
Howard was only a very casual acquaintance; he was no use at games; he
had never been in the same form as Roland, and fellows in the School
house usually kept pretty much to themselves. They had only met in
groups outside the chapel, or at roll-call, or before a lecture. It was
probably the first time they had ever been alone together.
"Right you are!" said Roland. "Mr Ruffer, bring me a large strawberry
ice and a cup of coffee."
But the ice did not last long, and they were soon strolling up the High
Street, with time heavy on their hands. Conversation flagged; they had
very little in common.
"I know," said Howard. "Let's go down to the castle grounds; they'll
probably have a band, and we can watch the dancing."
Half-way between the station and the school, opposite the Eversham
Hotel, where parents stopped for "commem" and confirmation, was a public
garden with a band-stand and well-kept lawns, and here on warm summer
evenings dances would promote and encourage the rustic courtships of
the youthful townsfolk. During the term these grounds were strictly out
of bounds to the school; but on the first night rules did not exist,
and besides, no one was likely to recognise them in the bowler hats and
coloured ties that would have to be put away that night in favour of
black poplin and broad white straw.
It was a warm night, and they leaned against the railing watching the
girls in their light print dresses waltz in the clumsy arms of their
selected.
"Looks awfully jolly," said Howard. "They don't have a bad time, those
fellows. There are one or two rippingly pretty girls."
"And look at the fellows they're dancing with. I can't think how they
can stand it. Now look there, at that couple by the stand. She's a
really pretty girl, while her man is pimply, with a scraggy moustache
and sweating forehead, and yet look how she's leaning over his shoulder;
think of her being kissed by that."
"I suppose there's something about him."
"I suppose so."
There was a pause: Roland wished that difference of training and
position did not hold them from the revel.
"By Jove!" said Roland, "it would be awful fun to join them."
"Well, I dare you to."
"Dare say you do. I'm not having any. I don't run risks in a place where
I'm known."
As a matter of fact, Roland did not run risks anywhere, but he wanted
Howard to think him something of a Don Juan. One is always ashamed of
innocence, and Howard was one of those fellows who naturally bring
out the worst side of their companions. His boisterous, assertive
confidence was practically a challenge, and Roland did not enjoy the
rôle of listener and disciple, especially as Howard was, by the school
standards, socially his inferior.
At that moment two girls strolled past, turned, and giggled over their
shoulders.
"Do you see that?" said Roland.
"What about it?"
"Well, I mean...."
The girls were coming back, and suddenly, to Roland's surprise,
embarrassment and annoyance, Howard walked forward and raised his hat.
"Lonely?" he said.
"Same as you."
"Like a walk, then?"
"All right, if your friend's not too shy."
And before Roland could make any protest he was walking, tongue-tied and
helpless, on the arm of a full-blown shop-girl.
"Well, you're a cheerful sort of chap, aren't you?" she said at last.
"Sorry, but you see I wasn't expecting you!"
"Oh, she didn't turn up, I suppose?"
"I didn't mean that."
"Oh, get along, I know you; you're all the same. Why, I was talking to a
boy last week...."
To save her the indignity of a confession, Roland suggested that they
should dance.
"All right, only don't hold me too tight--sister's looking."
There was no need to talk while they were dancing, and he was glad to be
able to collect his thoughts. It was an awkward business. She wasn't on
the whole a bad-looking girl; she was certainly too plump, but she had
a nice smile and pretty hair; and he felt no end of a dog. But it was
impossible to become romantic, for she giggled every time he tried to
hold her a little closer, and once when his cheek brushed accidentally
against hers she gave him a great push, and shouted, "Now then,
naughty!" to the intense amusement of another couple. Still, he enjoyed
dancing with her. It would be something to tell the fellows afterwards.
They would be sitting in the big study. Gradually the talk would drift
round to girls. He would sit in silence while the others would relate
invented escapades, prefaced by, "My brother told me," or, "I saw in
a French novel." He would wait for the lull, then himself would let
fall--oh! so gently--into the conversation, "a girl that I danced with
in the castle grounds...."
The final crash of the band recalled him to the requirements of
the moment, and the need for conversation. They sat on a seat and
discussed the weather, the suitability of grass as a dancing floor,
the superiority of a band over a piano. He introduced subject after
subject, bringing them up one after another, like the successive waves
of infantry in an attack. It was not a success. The first bars of a
waltz were a great relief.
He jumped up and offered her his arm.
"From the school, aren't you?" she said.
"How did you guess?" he asked. She answered him with a giggle.
It was a blow, admittedly a blow. He had not imagined himself a shining
success, but he had not thought that he was giving himself away quite
as badly as that. They got on a great deal better though after it. They
knew where they were, and he found her a very jolly girl, a simple
creature, whose one idea was to be admired and to enjoy herself, an
ambition not so very different from Roland's. It was her sense of
humour that beat him: she giggled most of the time; why he could not
understand. It was annoying, because everyone stared at them, and
Roland hated to be conspicuous. He was prepared to enjoy the illusion
but not the reality in public. He was not therefore very sorry when
the Abbey clock warned him that in a few minutes the four-eighteen
would have arrived and that the best place for him was the School house
dining-room.
On the way back he met Howard.
"I say, you rather let me in for it, you know," he said.
"Oh, rot, my dear chap; but even if I did, I'll bet you enjoyed yourself
all right."
"Perhaps I did. But that makes no difference. After all, you didn't know
I was going to. I'd never seen the girl before."
"But one never has on these occasions, has one? One's got to trust to
luck: you know that as well as I do."
"Of course, of course, but still...."
They argued it out till they reached the cloisters leading to the School
house studies, exchanged there a cheery good-night and went their way.
Five minutes later the four-eighteen was in; the study passages were
filled with shouts; Roland was running up and down stairs, greeting his
old friends. The incident was closed, and in the normal course of things
it would never have been reopened.
That it was reopened was due entirely, if indirectly, to Roland's
laziness on a wet Sunday afternoon, half way through October. It was a
really wet afternoon, the sort of afternoon when there is nothing to
be done but to pack one's study full of really good chaps and get up a
decent fug. Any small boy can be persuaded, with the aid of a shilling,
to brew some tea, and there are few things better than to sit in the
window-seat and watch the gravel courts turn to an enormous lake. Roland
was peculiarly aware of the charm of an afternoon so spent as he walked
across to his study after lunch, disquieted by the knowledge that his
football boots wanted restudding and that the night before he had vowed
solemnly that he would take them down to the professional before tea. It
would be fatal to leave them any longer, and he knew it. The ground on
Saturday had been too wet for football, and the whole house had gone for
a run, during which Roland had worn down one of his studs on the hard
roads, and driven a nail that uncomfortable hundredth of an inch through
the sole of his boot. If he wore those boots again before they had been
mended that hundredth of an inch would become a tenth of an inch, and
make no small part of a crater in his foot. It was obviously up to him
to put on a mackintosh and go down to the field at once. There was no
room for argument, and Roland knew it, but....
It was very pleasant and warm inside the study and damnably unpleasant
anywhere else. If only he were a prefect, and had a fag, how simple
his life would become. His shoes would be cleaned for him, his shaving
water would be boiled in the morning, his books would be carried down to
his classroom, and on this rain-drenched afternoon he would only have
to put his head outside the study door and yell "Fag!" and it would
be settled. But he was not a prefect, and he had no fag. It was no use
growling about it. He would have to go, of course he would have to go,
then added as a corollary--yes, certainly, at three o'clock. By that
time the weather might have cleared up.
But it had not cleared up by three o'clock, and Roland had become
hopelessly intrigued by a novel by Wilkie Collins, called _The
Moonstone_. He had just reached the place where Sergeant Cuff looks up
at Rachel's window and whistles _The Last Rose of Summer_. He could not
desert Sergeant Cuff at such a point for a pair of football boots, and
at three o'clock, with the whole afternoon before him. At half-past
there would be tons of time. But by half-past three it was raining in
the true Fernhurst manner, fierce, driving rain that whipped across the
courts, heavy gusts of wind that shrieked down the cloisters. Impossible
weather, absolutely impossible weather. No one but a fool would go out
in it. He would wait till four, it was certain to have stopped a bit by
then.
And by four o'clock it certainly was raining a good deal less, but by
four o'clock some eight persons had assembled in the study and a most
exciting discussion was in progress. Someone from Morgan's had started a
rumour to the effect that Fitzgerald, the vice-captain of the XV., was
going to be dropped out of the side for the Tonwich match and his place
given to Feversham, a reserve centre from James's. It was a startling
piece of news, that had to be discussed from every point of view.
First of all, would the side be improved? A doubtful matter. Fitzgerald
had certainly been out of form this season, and he had played miserably
in the last two matches, but he had experience; he would not be likely
to lose his head in a big game, and Feversham, well, it would be his
first school match. Altogether a doubtful issue, and, granted even that
Feversham was better than Fitzgerald, would it be worth while in the
long run to leave out the vice-captain and head of Buxton's? Would it be
doing a good service to Fernhurst football? Buxton's was the athletic
house; it had six school colours. The prestige of Fernhurst depended a
good deal on the prestige of Buxton's. Surely the prestige of Buxton's
was more important than a problematic improvement in the three-quarter
line.
They argued it out for a quarter of an hour and then, just when the last
point had been brought forward, and Roland had begun to feel that he was
left with no possible excuse for not going down to the field, the tea
arrived; and after that what chance did he stand? By the time tea was
over it was nearly five o'clock. Choir practice would have started in a
quarter of an hour: if he wanted to, he could not have gone down then. A
bad business. But it had been a pleasant afternoon; it was raining like
blazes still; very likely the ground would be again too wet for play
to-morrow, and he would cut the walk and get his boots mended. No doubt
things would pan out all right.
Things, however, did not on this occasion adapt themselves to Roland's
wishes. The rain stopped shortly after eight o'clock; a violent wind
shrieked all night along the cloisters; next morning the violent
wind was accompanied by bright sunshine; by half-past two the ground
was almost dry. Roland played in his unstudded boots, and, as he had
expected, the projecting hundredth of an inch sank deeply into his toe.
Three days later he was sent up to the sanatorium with a poisoned foot.
And in the sanatorium he found himself in the same ward and alone
with Howard, who was recovering from an attack of "flu" that had been
incorrectly diagnosed as measles.
It was the first time they had met since the first evening of the term.
CHAPTER II
THE OUTCOME
When two people are left alone together all day, with no amusement
except their own conversation, they naturally become intimate, and as
the episode of the dance was the only bond of interest between Howard
and Roland they turned to it at once. As soon as the matron had gone out
of the room Howard asked if he had been forgiven.
"Oh, yes, a long time ago; it was a jolly rag."
"Seen anything of your girl since then?"
"Heavens! no. Have you?"
"I should jolly well think so; one doesn't let a thing like that slip
through one's fingers in a hurry. I go out with her every Sunday, and as
likely as not once or twice during the week."
Roland was struck with surprise and admiration.
"But how on earth do you manage it?"
"Oh, it's quite easy: in our house anyone can get out who wants to. The
old man never spots anything. I just heave on a cap and mackintosh, meet
her behind the Abbey and we go for a stroll along the Slopes."
Roland could not ask too many questions and Howard was only too ready
to answer them. He had seldom enjoyed such a splendid audience. He was
not thought much of in the school, and to tell the truth he was not much
of a fellow. He had absorbed the worst characteristics of a bad house.
He would probably after he had left spend his evenings hanging about
private bars and the stage doors of second-class music halls. But he was
an interesting companion in the sanatorium, and he and Roland discussed
endlessly the eternally fascinating subject of girls.
"The one thing that you must never do with a girl is to be shy," Howard
said. "That's the one fatal thing that she'll never forgive. You can do
anything you like with any girl if only you go the right way about it.
She doesn't care whether you are good-looking or rich or clever, but if
she feels that you know more than she does, that she can trust herself
in your hands.... It's all personality. If a girl tries to push you away
when you kiss her, don't worry her, kiss her again; she only wants to be
persuaded; she'd despise you if you stopped; girls are weak themselves,
so they hate weakness. You can take it from me, Whately, that girls are
an easy game when you know the way to treat them. It would surprise you
if you could only know what they were thinking. You'll see them sitting
at your father's table, so demure, with their 'Yes, Mr Howard,' and
their 'No, Mr Howard.' You'd think they'd stepped out of the pages of a
fairy book, and yet get those same girls alone, and in the right mood,
my word...."
Inflammatory, suggestive stuff: the pimp in embryo.
And Roland was one of those on whom such persons thrive. He had always
kept straight at school; he was not clever nor imaginative, but he was
ambitious: and he had realised early that if he wanted to become a
power in the school he must needs be a success at games. He had kept
clear of anything that had seemed likely to impair his prowess on the
field. But it was different for him here in the sanatorium, with no
exercise and occupation. In a very little while he had become thoroughly
roused. Howard had enjoyed a certain number of doubtful experiences;
had read several of the books that appear in the advertisements of
obscure French papers as "rare and curious." He had in addition a good
imagination. Within two days Roland's one idea was to pick up at the
first opportunity the threads of the romance he had so callously flung
aside.
"There'll be no difficulty about that, my dear fellow," said Howard. "I
can easily get Betty to arrange it. We meet every Sunday, and we have
to walk right out beyond Cold Harbour. She says she feels a bit lonely
going out all that way by herself. Now suppose she went out with your
girl and you went out with me--that'ld be pretty simple, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, that would be splendid. Do you think you could fix it up?"
"As easy as laughing."
"But I shall feel an awful fool," Roland insisted. "I shan't know what
to say or anything."
"Don't you worry about that, my dear fellow; you just look as if you did
and keep your eyes open, and you'll soon learn; these girls know a lot
more than you would think."
So it was arranged. Roland found by the time his foot was right again
that he had let himself in for a pretty exacting programme. It had all
seemed jolly enough up at the sanatorium, but when he was back in the
house, and life re-established its old values, he began to regret it
very heartily. He didn't mind going out with the girl--that would be
quite exciting: besides it was an experience to which everyone had to
come some time or other--but he did not look forward to a long walk with
Howard every Sunday afternoon for the rest of the term.
"Whately, old son," he said to his reflection in the glass as he shaved
himself on the next Sunday morning, "you've made a pretty sanguinary
fool of yourself, but you can't clear out now. You've got to see it
through."
It was very awkward though when Anderson ran up to him in the cloisters
with "Hullo, Whately, going out for a stroll; well, just wait
half-a-sec. while I fetch my hat." Roland had an infernal job getting
rid of him.
"But, my dear man," Anderson had protested, "where on earth are you
going? I've always thought you the piest man in the house. But if it's a
smoke I'll watch you and if it's a drink I'll help you."
"Oh no, it's not that. I'm going out with a man in Morgan's."
Anderson's mouth emitted a long whistle of surprise.
"So our Whately has deserted his old friends? Ah, well, when one gets
into the XV., I know."
Roland could see that Anderson was offended.
But it was even worse when he came back to find his study full of seven
indignant sportsmen wanting to know why on earth he had taken to going
out for walks with "a dirty tick in Morgan's, who was no use at anything
and didn't even wash."
"He's quite a decent chap," said Roland weakly. "I met him in the san."
"I dare say you did," said Anderson; "we're not blaming you for that.
You couldn't help it. But those sorts of things, one does try to live
down."
For days he was ragged about it, so much so that he hadn't the face to
say he had been going out with a girl. Such a statement should be a
proud acknowledgment, not a confession. If ever he said he couldn't go
anywhere, or do something, the invariable retort was, "I suppose you're
going out for a walk with Howard."
The School house was exclusive; it was insular; it was prepared to allow
the possibility of its members having friends in the outhouses; there
were good men in the outhouses, even in Morgan's. But one had to be
particular, and when it came to Whately, a man of whom the house was
proud, deserting his friends for a greasy swine in Morgan's who didn't
wash, well, the least one could do was to make the man realise that he
had gone a little far.
It was a bad business, altogether a bad business, and Roland very much
doubted whether the hour and a half he spent with Dolly was an adequate
recompense. She was a nice girl, quite a nice girl, and they found
themselves on kissing terms quickly enough. There were no signs of their
getting any further, and, as a matter of fact, if there had been, Roland
would have been extremely alarmed. He objected to awkward situations
and intense emotions: he preferred to keep his life within the decent
borders of routine. He wanted adventure certainly, but adventure bounded
by the limits of the society in which he lived. He liked to feel that
his day was tabulated and arranged; he hated that lost feeling of being
unprepared; he liked to know exactly what he had to say to Dolly before
he could hold her hand and exactly what he had to say before she would
let him kiss her. It was a game that had to be rehearsed before one got
it right; no actor enjoys his part before he has learnt his words; when
he had learnt the rules it was great fun; kisses were pleasant things.
He wrote a letter to his friend, Ralph Richmond, acquainting him of this
fact.
MY DEAR RALPH,--Why haven't you written to me, you lazy swine?
I suppose you will say that you're awfully hard worked, getting
ready for Smalls. But I don't believe it. I know how much I do
myself.
It's been quite a decent term. I got my colours and shall be
captain of the house after the summer if the people I think are
going to leave do leave. Think of me as a ruler of men. I'm having
a pretty good slack in form and don't have to do any work, except
in French, where a fellow called Carus-Evans, an awful swine, has
his knife into me and puts me on whenever we get to a hard bit.
However, as I never do much else I'm able to swot the French all
right.
The great bit of news, though, is that I've met a girl in the
town who I go out for walks with. I'm not really keen on her, and I
think I prefer her friend, Betty (we go in couples). Betty's much
older and she's dark and she makes you blush when she looks at you.
Still, Dolly's very jolly, and we go out for walks every Sunday and
have great times. She lets me kiss her as much as I like. Now what
do you think of it? Write and tell me at once. Yours ever,
ROLAND.
Two days later Roland received the following reply:--
MY DEAR ROLAND,--So glad to hear from you again, and many
congratulations on your firsts. I had heard about them as a matter
of fact, and had been meaning to write to you, but I am very busy
just now. April told me about it; she seemed awfully pleased. I
must say she was looking jolly pretty; she thinks a lot of you.
Sort of hero. If I were you I should think a bit more about her and
a little less about your Bettys and Dollys.
I'm looking forward to the holidays. We must manage to have a
few good rags somehow. The Saundersons are giving a dance, so that
ought to be amusing. Ever yours,
RALPH.
Roland's comment on this letter was "Jealous little beast." He wished
he hadn't written to him. And why drag April in? He and April were
great friends; they always had been. Once they had imagined themselves
sweethearts. When they went out to parties they had always sat next each
other during tea and held hands under the table; in general post Roland
had often been driven into the centre because of a brilliant failure
to take the chair that was next to hers. They had kissed sometimes at
dances in the shadow of a passage, and once at a party, when they had
been pulling crackers, he had slipped on to the fourth finger of her
left hand a brass ring that had fallen from the crumpled paper. She
still kept that ring, although the days of courtship were over. Roland
had altered since he had gone to Fernhurst. But they were great friends,
and there was always an idea between the two families that the children
might eventually marry. Mr Whately was, indeed, fond of prefacing some
remote speculation about the future with, "By the time Roland and April
are married----"
There was no need, Roland felt, for Ralph to have dragged April into
the business at all. He was aggrieved, and the whole business seemed
again a waste and an encumbrance. Was it worth while? He got ragged in
the house, and he had to spend an hour in Howard's company before he
met Dolly at all. Howard was really rather terrible; so conceited, so
familiar; and now that he had found an audience he indulged it the whole
time. He was at his worst when he attempted sentiment. Once when they
were walking back he turned to Roland, in the middle of a soliloquy,
with a gesture of profound disdain and resignation.
"But what's all this after all?" he said. "It's nothing; it's pleasant;
it passes the time, and we have to have some distractions in this
place to keep us going. But it's not the real thing; there's all the
difference in the world between this and the real thing. A kiss can be
anything or nothing; it can raise one to--to any height, or it can be
like eating chocolates. I'm not a chap, you know, who really cares for
this sort of thing. I'm in love. I suppose you are too."
And Roland, who did not want to be outdone, confessed that there was
someone, "a girl he had known all his life."
"But you don't want a girl you've known all your life; love's not a
thing that we drift into; it must be sudden; it must be unexpected; it
must hurt."
Howard was a sore trial, and it was with the most unutterable relief
that Roland learned that he was leaving at Christmas to go to a
crammer's.
"We must keep up with one another, old fellow," Howard said on their
last Sunday. "You must come and lunch with me one day in town. Write and
tell me all about it. We've had some jolly times."
Roland caught a glimpse of him on the last day, resplendent in an O.F.
scarf, very loud and hearty, saying "good-bye" to people he had hardly
spoken to before. "You'll write to me, won't you, old fellow? Come and
lunch with me when you're up in town. The Regent Club. Good-bye." Since
his first year, when the prefect for whom he had fagged, and by whom
he had been beaten several times, had left, Roland had never been so
heartily thankful to see any member of the school in old boys' colours.
CHAPTER III
RALPH AND APRIL
Ralph Richmond was the son of an emotional woman and he had read too
many novels. He took himself seriously: without being religious,
he considered that it was the duty of every man to leave the world
better than he found it. Such a philosophy may be natural to a man
of thirty-six who sees small prospect of realising his own ambition,
and resorts to the consolation of a collective enthusiasm, but it is
abnormal in a boy of seventeen, an age which usually sees itself in
the stalls of a theatre waiting for the curtain to rise and reveal
a stage set with limitless opportunities for self-development and
self-indulgence.
But Ralph had been brought up in an atmosphere of ideals; at the age of
seven he gave a performance of _Hamlet_ in the nursery, and in the same
year he visited a lenten performance of _Everyman_. At his preparatory
school he came under the influence of an empire builder, who used to
appeal to the emotions of his form. "The future of the country is in
your hands," he would say. "One day you will be at the helm. You must
prepare yourselves for that time. You must never forget." And Ralph did
not. He thought of himself as the arbiter of destinies. He felt that
till that day his life must be a vigil. Like the knights of Arthurian
romance, he would watch beside his armour in the chapel. In the process
he became a prig, and on his last day at Rycroft Lodge he became a
prude. His headmaster gave all the boys who were leaving a long and
serious address on the various temptations of the flesh to which they
would be subjected at their Public Schools. Ralph had no clear idea
of what these temptations might be. Their results, however, seemed
sufficient reason for abstention. If he yielded to them, he gathered
that he would lose in a short time his powers of thought, his strength,
his moral stamina; a slow poison would devour him; in a few years he
would be mad and blind and probably, though of this he was not quite
certain, deaf as well. At any rate he would be in a condition when the
ability of detecting sound would be of slight value. These threats were
alarming: their effect, however, would not have been lasting in the case
of Ralph, who was no coward and also, being no fool, would have soon
observed that this process of disintegration was not universal in its
application. No; it was not the threat that did the damage: it was the
romantic appeal of the headmaster's peroration.
"After all," he said, after a dramatic pause, "how can any one of you
who has been a filthy beast at school dare to propose marriage to some
pure, clean woman?"
That told; that sentiment was within the range of his comprehension;
it was a beautiful idea, a chivalrous idea, worthy, he inappropriately
imagined, of Sir Lancelot. He could understand that a knight should
come to his lady with glittering armour and an unstained sword. At the
time he did not fully appreciate the application of this image: he
soon learnt, however, that a night spent on one's knees on the stone
floor of a draughty chapel is a cold and lonely prelude to enchantment:
a discovery that did not make him the more charitable to those who
preferred clean linen and soft down.
It was only to be supposed, therefore, that he would receive Roland's
confidences with disgust. He had always felt a little jealous of April's
obvious preference for his friend, but he had regarded it as the fortune
of war and had taken what pleasure he might in the part of confidant.
To this vicarious excitant their intimacy indeed owed its strength. His
indignation, therefore, when he learnt of Roland's rustic courtship was
only exceeded by his positive fury when, on the first evening of the
holidays, he went round to see the Curtises and found there Roland and
his father. It was the height of hypocrisy. He had supposed that Roland
would at least have the decency to keep away from her. It had been bad
enough to give up a decent girl for a shop assistant, but to come back
and carry on as though nothing had happened.... It was monstrous, cruel,
unthinkable. And there was April, so clean and calm, with her thick
brown hair gathered up in a loop across her forehead; her eyes, deep
and gentle, with subdued colours, brown and a shade of green, and that
delicate smile of simple trust and innocence, smiling at him, ignorant
of how she had been deceived.
It must be set down, however, to Roland's credit that he had felt
a few qualms about going round at once to see the Curtises. Less
than twenty-four hours had passed since he had held Dolly's hand
and protested to her an undying loyalty. He did not love her; the
words meant nothing, and they both knew it; they were merely part of
the convention of the game. Nor for that matter was he in love with
April--at least he did not think he was. He owed nothing to either of
them. But conscience told him that, in view of the understanding that
was supposed to exist between them, it would be more proper to wait a
day or two. After all, one did not go to a theatre the day after one's
father's funeral, however eagerly one's imagination had anticipated the
event.
Things had, however, turned out otherwise. At a quarter to six Mr
Whately returned from town. He was the manager of a bank, at a salary of
seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, an income that allowed the family
to visit the theatre, upper circle seats, at least once every holidays
and provided Roland with as much pocket-money as he needed. Mr Whately
walked into the drawing-room, greeted his son with the conventional joke
about a holiday task, handed his wife a copy of _The Globe_, sat down in
front of the fire and began to take off his boots.
"Nothing much in the papers to-day, my dear. Not much happening anywhere
as a matter of fact. I had lunch to-day with Robinson and he called it
the lull before the storm. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he wasn't
right. You can't trust these Radicals."
He was a scrubby little man: for thirty years he had worked in the same
house: there had been no friction and no excitement in his life: he had
by now lost any independence of thought and action.
"I've just found a splendid place, my dear, where you can get a really
first-class lunch for one-and-sixpence."
"Have you, dear?"
"Yes; in Soho, just behind the Palace. I went there to-day with
Robinson. We had four courses, and cheese to finish up with. Something
like."
"And was it well cooked, dear?"
"Rather; the plaice was beautifully fried. Just beginning to brown."
His face flushed with a genuine animation. Change of food was the only
adventure that life brought to him. He rose slowly.
"Well, I must go up and change, I suppose. I've one or two other things
to tell you, dear, later on."
He did not ask his wife what she had been doing during the day; it was
indeed doubtful whether he appreciated the existence of any life at 105
Hammerton Villas, Hammerton, during the hours when he was away from
them. Himself was the central point.
Five minutes later he came down stairs in a light suit.
"Well, who's coming out with me for a constitutional?"
Roland got up, walked into the hall, picked up his hat and stick.
"Right you are, father; I'm ready."
It was the same thing every day. At eight-thirty-five Mr Whately caught
a bus at the corner of the High Street. He had never been known to miss
it. On the rare occasions when he was a few seconds late the driver
would wait till he saw the panting little figure come running round
the corner, trying to look dignified in spite of the top hat that
bobbed from one side of his head to the other. From nine o'clock till a
quarter-past five Mr Whately worked at a desk, with an hour's interval
for lunch. Every evening he went for an hour's walk; for half-an-hour
before dinner he read the evening paper. After dinner he would play a
game of patience and smoke his pipe. Occasionally a friend would drop in
for a chat; very occasionally he would go out himself. At ten o'clock
sharp he went to bed. Every Saturday afternoon he attended a public
performance of either cricket or football according to the season.
Roland often wondered how he could stand it. What had he to look forward
to? What did he think about when he sat over the fire puffing at his
pipe. And his mother. How monotonous her life appeared to him. Yet
she seemed always happy enough: she never grumbled. Roland could not
understand it. Whatever happened, he would take jolly good care that he
never ran into a groove like that. They had loved each other well enough
once, he supposed, but now--oh, well, love was the privilege of youth.
Father and son walked in silence. They were fond of each other;
they liked being together; Mr Whately was very proud of his son's
achievements; but their affection was never expressed in words. After a
while they began to talk of indifferent things, guessing at each other's
thoughts: a relationship of intuitions. They passed along the High
Street and, turning behind the shops, walked down a long street of small
red-brick villas with stucco fronts.
"Don't you think we ought to go in and see the Curtises?" Mr Whately
asked.
"I don't know. I hadn't meant to. I thought...."
"I think you ought to, you know, your first day; they'd be rather
offended if you didn't. April asked me when you were coming back."
And so Roland was bound to abandon his virtuous resolution.
It was not a particularly jolly evening before Ralph arrived. Afterwards
it was a good deal worse.
In the old days, when father and son had paid an evening visit, Roland
had run straight up to the nursery and enjoyed himself, but now he had
to sit in the drawing-room, which was a very different matter. He did
not like Mrs Curtis: he never had liked her, but she had not troubled
him in the days when she had been a mere voice below the banisters. Now
he had to sit in the small drawing-room, with its shut windows, and hear
her voice cleave through the clammy atmosphere in languid, pathetic
cadences; a sentimental voice, and under the sentiment a hard, cold
cruelty. Her person was out of keeping with her voice; it should have
been plump and comfortable-looking; instead it was tall, thin, angular,
all over points, like a hat-rack in a restaurant: a terrible bedfellow.
And she talked, heavens! how she talked. It was usually about her
children.
"Dear Arthur, he's getting on so well at school. Do you know what his
headmaster said about him in his report?"
"Oh, but, mother, please," Arthur would protest.
"No, dear, be quiet: I know Mr Whately would like to hear. The
headmaster said, Mr Whately...." Then it was her daughter's turn.
"And April too, Mr Whately, she's getting on so well with her drawing
lessons. Mr Hamilton was only saying to me yesterday...."
It was not surprising that Roland was less keen now on going round
there. It was little fun for him after all to sit and listen while she
talked, to see his father so utterly complacent, with his "Yes, Mrs
Curtis," and his "Really, Mrs Curtis," and to look at poor April huddled
in the window-seat, so bored, so ashamed, her eyes meeting his with a
look that said: "Don't worry about her, don't take any notice of what
she says. I'm not like that." Once or twice he tried to talk to her,
but it was no use: her mother would interrupt, would bring them back
into the circle of her own egotism. In her own drawing-room she would
tolerate nothing independent of herself.
"Yes, Roland; what was it you were saying? The Saundersons' dance? Of
course April will be going. They're very old friends of ours, the
Saundersons. Mr Saunderson thinks such a lot of Arthur too. You know, Mr
Whately, I met him in the High Street the other afternoon and he said to
me, 'How's that clever son of yours getting on, Mrs Curtis?'"
"Really, Mrs Curtis."
"Yes, really, Mr Whately."
It was at this point that Ralph arrived.
His look of surprised displeasure was obvious to everyone. But knowing
Ralph, they mistook it for awkwardness. He did not like company, and his
shyness was apparent as he stood in the doorway in an ill-fitting suit,
with trousers that bagged at the knees, and with the front part of his
hair smarmed across his forehead with one hurried sweep of a damp brush,
at right angles to the rest of his hair, that fell perpendicularly from
the crown of his head.
"Come along, Ralph," said April, and made room for him in the
window-seat. She treated him with an amused condescension. He was so
clumsy; a dear fellow, so easy to rag. "And how did your exam. go?" she
asked.
"All right."
"No; but really, tell me about it. What were the maths like?"
"Not so bad."
"And the geography? You were so nervous about that."
"I didn't do badly."
"And the Latin and the Greek? I want to know all about it."
"You don't, really?"
"Yes, but I do."
"No, you don't," he said impatiently. "You'd much rather hear about
Roland and all the things he does at Fernhurst."
There was a moment of difficult silence, then April said quite quietly:
"You are quite right, Ralph; as a matter of fact I should"; and she
turned towards Roland, but before she could say anything, Mrs Curtis
once more assumed her monopoly of the conversation.
"Yes, Roland, you've told us nothing about that, and how you got your
firsts. We were so proud of you too. And you never wrote to tell us. If
it hadn't been for your father we should never have known." And for the
next half-hour her voice flowed on placidly, while Ralph sat in a frenzy
of self-pity and self-contempt, and Roland longed for an opportunity to
kick him, and April looked out between the half-drawn curtains towards
the narrow line of sky that lay darkly over the long stretch of roofs
and chimney-pots, happy that Roland's holidays had begun, regretting
wistfully that childhood was finished for them, that they could no
longer play their own games in the nursery, that they had become part of
the ambitions of their parents.
When at last they rose to go, Ralph lingered for a moment in the
doorway; he could not go home till April had forgiven him.
She stood on the top of the step, looking down the street to Roland, her
heart still beating a little quickly, still disturbed by that pressure
of the hand and that sudden uncomfortable meeting of the eyes when he
had said "Good-bye." She did not notice Ralph till he began to speak to
her.
"I am awfully sorry I was so rude to you, April. I'm rather tired. I
didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't have done it for worlds."
She turned to him with a quiet smile.
"Oh, don't worry about that," she said, "that's nothing."
And he could see that to her it was indeed nothing, that she had not
thought twice about it. That nothing he said or did was of the least
concern to her. He would much rather that she had been angry.
* * * * *
Next day Ralph came round to the Whatelys' soon after breakfast.
"Well, feeling more peaceful to-day, old friend?" Ralph looked at Roland
in impotent annoyance. As he knew of old, Roland was an impossible
person to have a row with. He simply would not fight. He either agreed
to everything you said or else brushed away your arguments with a
good-natured "All right, old man, all right!" On this occasion, however,
he felt that he must make a stand.
"You're the limit," he said; "the absolute limit."
"I don't know about that, but I think you were last night."
"Oh, don't joke about it. You know what I mean. I think it's pretty
rotten for a fellow like you to go about with a shop-assistant, but
that's not really the thing. What's simply beastly is your coming back
to April as though nothing had happened. What would she say if she
knew?"
Roland refused to acknowledge omniscience. "I don't know," he said.
"She wouldn't be pleased, would she?" Ralph persisted.
"I don't suppose so."
"No; well then, there you are; you oughtn't to do anything you think she
mightn't like."
Roland looked at him with a sad patience, as a preparatory schoolmaster
at a refractory infant.
"But, my dear fellow, we're not married, and we're not engaged. Surely
we can do more or less what we like."
"But would you be pleased if you learned that she'd been carrying on
with someone else?"
Roland admitted that he would not.
"Then why should you think you owe nothing to her?"
"It's different, my dear Ralph; it's quite different."
"No, it isn't."
"Yes, it is. Boys can do things that girls can't. A flirtation means
very little to a boy; it means a good deal to a girl--at least it ought
to. If it doesn't, it means that she's had too much of it."
"But I don't see----" began Ralph.
"Come on, come on; don't let's go all over that again. We shall never
agree. Let me go my way and you can go yours. We are too old friends to
quarrel about a thing like this."
Most boys would have been annoyed by Ralph's attempt at interference,
but it took a great deal to ruffle Roland's lazy, equable good nature.
He did not believe in rows. He liked to keep things running smoothly.
He could never understand the people who were always wanting to stir up
trouble. He did not really care enough either way. His tolerance might
have been called indifference, but it possessed, at any rate, a genuine
charm. The other fellow always felt what a thundering good chap Roland
was--so good-tempered, such a gentleman, never harbouring a grievance.
People knew where they were with him; when he said a thing was over it
was over.
"All right," said Ralph grudgingly. "I don't know that it's quite the
game----"
"Don't worry. We're a long way from anything serious. A good deal's got
to happen before we're come to the age when we can't do what we like."
And they talked of other things.
CHAPTER IV
A KISS
April sat for a long while before the looking-glass wondering whether
to tie a blue or a white ribbon in her hair. She tried one and then the
other and paused irresolute. It was the evening of the Saundersons'
dance, to which for weeks she had been looking forward, and she was
desperately anxious to look pretty. It would be a big affair: ices
and claret-cup and a band, and Roland would be there. They had seen a
lot of each other during the holidays--nearly every day. Often they
had felt awkward in each other's company; there had been embarrassing
silences, when their eyes would meet suddenly and quickly turn away;
and then there would come an unexpected interlude of calm, harmonious
friendship, when they would talk openly and naturally to each other and
would sit afterwards for a long while silent, softened and tranquillised
by the presence of some unknown influence--moments of rare gentleness
and sympathy. April could not help feeling that they were on the edge
of something definite, some incident of avowal. She did not know what,
but she felt that something was about to happen. She was flustered and
expectant and eager to look pretty for Roland on this great evening.
She had chosen a very simple dress, a white muslin frock, that left
bare her arms and throat, and was trimmed with pale blue ribbon at the
neck and elbow; her stockings, too, were white, but her shoes and her
sash a vivid, unexpected scarlet. She turned round slowly before the
glass and smiled happily at her clear, fresh girlhood, tossing back
her head, so that her hair was shaken out over her shoulders. Surely
he would think her beautiful to-night. With eager fingers she tied the
blue ribbon in her hair, turned again slowly before the glass, smiled,
shook out her hair, and laughed happily. Yes, she would wear the blue--a
subdued, quiet colour, that faded naturally into the warm brown. She ran
downstairs for her family's approval, stood before her mother and turned
a slow circle.
"Well, mother?"
Mrs Curtis examined her critically.
"Of course, dear, I'm quite certain that you'll be the prettiest girl
there whatever you wear."
"What do you mean, mother?"
"Well, April dear, of course I know you think you know best, but that
white frock--it is so very simple."
"But simple things suit me, mother."
"I know they do, dear; you look sweet in anything; but at a big
dance like this, where there'll be so many smart people, they might
think--well, I don't know, dear, but it is very quiet, isn't it?"
The moment before April had been happy and excited, and now she was
crushed and humiliated. She sat down on the edge of a chair, gazing with
pathetic pity at her brilliant shoes.
"You've spoilt it all," she said.
"No, dear. I'm sure you'll be thankful to me when you get there. Now,
why don't you run upstairs and put on that nice mauve frock of yours?"
April shook her shoulders.
"I don't like mauve."
"Well then, dear, there's the green and yellow; you always look nice in
that."
It was a bright affair that her mother had seen at a sale in Brixton
and bought at once because it was so cheap. It had never really suited
April, whose delicate features needed a simple setting; but her mother
did not like to feel that she had made a mistake, and having persuaded
herself that the green and yellow was the right colour, and matched
her daughter's eyes, had insisted on April's wearing it as often as
possible.
"Yes, my dear, the green and yellow. I'm sure I'm right. Now hurry up;
the cab will be here in ten minutes."
April walked upstairs slowly. She hated that green and yellow; she
always had hated it. She took it down from the wardrobe and, holding
the ends of the sleeves, stretched out her arms on either side so that
the green and yellow dress covered her completely, and then she stood
looking at it in the glass.
How blatant, how decorative it was, with its bows and ribbons and
slashed sleeves. There were some girls whom it would suit--big girls
with high complexions and full figures. But it wasn't her dress, it
spoilt her. She let it slip from her fingers; it fell rustling to the
floor, and once again the glass reflected her in a plain white frock,
and once again she tossed back her head, and once again the slow
smile of satisfaction played across her lips. And as she stood there
with outstretched arms, for one inspired moment of revelation, during
which the beating of her heart was stilled, she saw how beautiful she
would one day be to the man for whom with such a gesture she would be
delivered to his love. A deep flush coloured her neck and face, a flush
of triumphant pride, of wakening womanhood. Then with a quick, impatient
movement of her scarlet shoes she kicked the yellow dress away from her.
Why should she wear it? She dressed to please herself and not her
mother. She knew best what suited her. What would happen if she
disobeyed her? Would anyone ever know? She could manage to slip out when
no one was looking. Annie would be sent to fetch her, but they would
come back after everyone had gone to bed.
She sat on the edge of her bed and toyed with the thought of rebellion.
It would be horribly exciting. It would be the naughtiest thing she had
done in her life. She had never yet disobeyed deliberately anyone who
had authority over her. She had lost her temper in the nursery; she had
been insolent to her nurses; she had pretended not to hear when she had
been called; but never this: never had she sat down and decided in cold
blood to disregard authority.
There was a knock at the door.
"Yes. Who's that?"
"It's only me--mother. Can I help you, dear?"
"No thank you, mother, I'm all right."
"Quite sure?"
"Quite."
April heard her mother slowly descend the stairs, then heaved a sigh of
half-proud, half-guilty relief. She was glad she had managed to get out
of it without actually telling a lie. She sat still and waited, till at
last she heard the crunch of a cab drawing up outside the house. She
wrapped herself tightly in her coat, tiptoed to the door, opened it and
listened. She could hear her mother's voice in the passage. Quietly she
stole out on to the landing, quietly ran downstairs and across the hall,
fumbled for the door handle, found it, turned it, and pulled it quickly
behind her. It was done; she was free. As she ran down the steps she
heard a window open behind her and her mother's voice:
"Who's that? What is it? Oh, you, April. You might have come to see me
before you went. A happy evening to you."
April could not trust herself to speak; she ran down the steps, jumped
into the cab and sank back into the corner of the cushioned seat. Her
breath came quickly and unevenly, her breasts heaved and fell. She could
have almost cried with excitement.
It had been worth it, though. She knew that beyond doubt a quarter of an
hour later, when she walked into the ballroom and saw the look of sudden
admiration that came into Roland's eyes when he saw her for the first
time across the room. He came straight over to her.
"How many dances may I have?" he asked.
"Well, there's No. 11."
"No. 11? Let me have a look at your card."
"No, of course you mustn't."
"Yes, of course. Why, I don't believe you have got one!"
"Yes, I have," she said, and held it up to him. In a second it was in
his hand, as indeed she had intended that it should be.
"Well, now," said Roland, "as far as I can see you've got only Nos. 6,
7, 14 and 15 engaged; that leaves fourteen for me."
"Well, you can have the four," she laughed.
In the end she gave him six. "And if I've any over you shall have them,"
she promised.
"Well you know there won't be," and their eyes met in a moment of quiet
intimacy.
As soon as he had gone other partners crowded round her. In a very short
while her programme was filled right up, the five extras as well. She
had left No. 17 vacant; it was the last waltz. She felt that she might
like Roland to have it, but was not sure. She didn't quite know why, but
she felt she would leave it open.
It was a splendid dance. As the evening passed, her face flushed and
her eyes brightened, and it was delightful to slip from the heat of the
ballroom on to the wide balcony and feel the cool of the air on her bare
arms. She danced once with Ralph, and as they sat out afterwards she
could almost feel the touch of his eyes on her. Poor Ralph; he was so
clumsy. How absurd it was of him to be in love with her. As if she could
ever care for him. She felt no pity. She accepted his admiration as a
queen accepts a subject's loyalty; it was the right due to her beauty,
to the eager flow of life that sustained her on this night of triumph.
And every dance with Roland seemed to bring her nearer to the wonderful
moment to which she had so long looked forward. When she was dancing
with Ralph, Roland's eyes would follow her all round the room, smiling
when they met hers. And when they danced together they seemed to share a
secret with one another, a secret still unrevealed.
Through the languid ecstasy of a waltz the words that he murmured into
her ear had no relation with their accepted sense. He was not repeating
a piece of trivial gossip, a pun, a story he had heard at school; he was
wooing her in their own way, in their own time. And afterwards as they
sat on the edge of the balcony, looking out over the roofs and lights
of London, she began to tell him about her dress and the trouble that
she had had with her mother. "She said I ought to wear a horrid thing
with yellow and green stripes that doesn't suit me in the least. And I
wouldn't. I stole out of the house when she wasn't looking."
"You look wonderful to-night," he said.
He leant forward and their hands touched; his little finger intertwined
itself round hers. She felt his warm breath upon her face.
"Do I?" she whispered. "It's all for you."
In another moment he would have taken her in his arms and kissed her,
and she would have responded naturally. They had reached that moment to
which the course of the courtship had tended, that point when a kiss is
involuntary, that point that can never come again. But just as his hands
stretched out to her the band struck up; he rested his hand on hers and
pressed it.
"We shall have to go," he whispered.
"Yes."
"But the next but one."
"No. 16."
But the magic of that one moment had passed; they had left behind
them the possibility of spontaneous action. They were no longer part
of the natural rhythm of their courtship. All through the next dance
he kept saying to himself: "I shall have to kiss her the next time. I
shall. I know I shall. I must pull myself together." He felt puzzled,
frightened and excited, so that when the time came he was both nervous
and self-conscious. The magic had gone, yet each felt that something
was expected of them. Roland tried to pull himself together; to remind
himself that if he didn't kiss her now she would never forgive him;
that there was nothing in it; that he had kissed Dolly a hundred times
and thought nothing of it. But it was not the same thing; that was
shallow and trivial; this was genuine; real emotion was at stake. He did
not know what to do. As they sat out after the dance he tried to make
a bet with himself, to say, "I'll count ten and then I'll do it." He
stretched out his hand to hers, and it lay in his limp and uninspired.
"April," he whispered, "April."
She turned her head from him. He leant forward, hesitated for a moment,
then kissed her awkwardly upon the neck. She did not move. He felt he
must do something. He put his arm round her, trying to turn her face to
his, but she pulled away from him. He tried to kiss her, and his chin
scratched the soft skin of her cheek, his nose struck hers, her mouth
half opened, and her teeth jarred against his lips. It was a failure, a
dismal failure.
She pushed him away angrily.
"Go away! go away!" she said. "What are you doing? What do you mean by
it? I hate you; go away!"
All the excitement of the evening turned into violent hatred; she was
half hysterical. She had been worked up to a point, and had been let
down. She was not angry with him because he had tried to kiss her, but
because he had chosen the wrong moment, because he had failed to move
her.
"But, April, I'm sorry, April."
"Oh, go away; leave me alone, leave me alone."
"But, April." He put his hand upon her arm, and she swung round upon him
fiercely.
"Didn't I tell you I wanted to be left alone. I don't know how you
dared. Do leave me."
She walked quickly past him into the ballroom, and seeing Ralph at
the far end of it went up and asked him, to that young gentleman's
exhilarated amazement, whether he was free for No. 17, and if he was
whether he would like to dance it with her. She wore a brave smile
through the rest of the evening and danced all her five extras.
But when she was home again, had climbed the silent stairs, and turning
up the light in her bedroom saw, lying on the floor, the discarded green
and yellow dress, she broke down, and flinging herself upon the bed
sobbed long and bitterly. She was not angry with Roland, nor her mother,
nor even with herself, but with life, with that cruel force that had
filled her with such eager boundless expectation, only in the end to
fling her down, to trample on her happiness, to mock her disenchantment.
Never as long as she lived would she forget the shame, the unspeakable
shame, and degradation of that evening.
CHAPTER V
A POTENTIAL DIPLOMAT
Roland returned to school with the uncomfortable feeling that he had
not made the most of his holidays. He had failed with April; he had not
been on the best of terms with Ralph; and he had found the last week or
so--after the Saundersons' dance--a little tedious. He was never sorry
to go back to school; on this occasion he was positively glad.
In many ways the Easter term was the best of the three; it was agreeably
short; there were the house matches, the steeplechases, the sports and
then, at the end of it, spring; those wonderful mornings at the end of
March when one woke to see the courts vivid with sunshine, the lindens
trembling on the verge of green; when one thought of the summer and
cricket and bathing and the long, cool evenings. And as Howard had now
left, there was nothing to molest his enjoyment of these good things.
He decided, after careful deliberation, to keep it up with Dolly. There
had been moments during the holidays when he had sworn to break with
her; it would be quite easy now that Howard had left. And often during
an afternoon in April's company the idea of embracing Dolly had been
repulsive to him. But he had been piqued by April's behaviour at the
dance, and his conduct was not ordered by a carefully-thought-out code
of morals. He responded to the atmosphere of the moment; his emotion,
while the moment that inspired it lasted, was sincere.
And so every Sunday afternoon he used to bicycle out towards Yeovil and
meet Dolly on the edge of a little wood. They would wheel their machines
inside and sit together in the shelter of the hedge. They did not talk
much; there was not much for them to discuss. But she would take off
her hat and lean her head against his shoulder and let him kiss her
as much as he wanted. She was not responsive, but then Roland hardly
expected it. His small experience of the one-sided romances of school
life had led him to believe that love was a thing of male desire and
gracious, womanly compliance. He never thought that anyone would want
to kiss him. He would look at his reflection in the glass and marvel at
the inelegance of his features--an ordinary face with ordinary eyes,
ordinary nose, ordinary mouth. Of his hair certainly he was proud; it
was a triumph. But he doubted whether Dolly appreciated the care with
which he had trained it to lie back from his forehead in one immaculate
wave. She had, indeed, asked him to give up brilliantine.
"It's so hard and smarmy," she complained; "I can't run my fingers
through it."
The one good point about him was certainly lost on Dolly. He wondered
whether April liked it. April and Dolly! It was hard to think of the
two together. What would April say if she were to hear about Dolly?
It was the theme Ralph was always driving at him like a nail, with
heavy, ponderous blows. An interesting point. What would April say?
He considered the question, not as a possible criticism of his own
conduct, but as the material for an intriguing, dramatic situation. It
would be hard to make her see the difference. "I'm a girl and she's a
girl and you want to kiss us both." That was how she would look at it,
probably--so illogical. One might as well say that water was the same
thing and had the same effect as champagne. Ridiculous! But it would be
hard to make April see it.
And there was a difference, a big difference; he felt it before a
fortnight of the new term had passed. In spite of the kisses he was
never moved by Dolly's presence as he was by April's. His blood was
calm--calmer, far calmer, than it had been last term. He never felt now
that excitement, that dryness of the throat that used to assail him in
morning chapel towards the end of the Litany. Something had passed, and
it was not solely April, though, no doubt, she had formed a standard
in his mind and had her share in this disenchantment. It was more than
that. In a subtle way, although he had hardly exchanged a dozen words
with her in his life, he missed Betty. He had enjoyed more than he had
realised at the time those moments of meeting and parting, when the four
of them had stood together, awkward, embarrassed, waiting for someone to
suggest a separation. It had always been Betty who had done it, with a
toss of her head: "Come on, Dolly, time to be getting on"; or else: "Now
then, Dolly, isn't it time you were taking your Roland away with you?"
And what a provocative, infinitely suggestive charm that slow smile of
hers had held for him. The thrill of it had borne him triumphantly over
the preliminaries of courtship. He missed it now, and often he found
himself talking of her to Dolly.
"Did she really like Howard?" he asked her once.
"Yes, I think so; in fact, I know she did. Though I couldn't see what
she saw in him myself. I suppose there was something about him. She
misses him quite a lot, so she says."
This statement Roland considered an excellent cue for an exchange of
gallantries.
"But wouldn't you miss me if I went?"
Dolly, however, was interested in her own subject.
"Yes," she went on, "she seems really worried. Only the other day she
said to me: 'Dolly, I can't get on without that boy. There's nothing to
look forward to of a Sunday now, and I get so tired of my work.' And
when I said to her: 'But, my dear Betty, there's hundreds more fish in
the sea. What about young Rogers at the post office?' she answers: 'Oh,
him! my boy's spoilt me for all that. I can't bear the sight of young
Rogers any more.' Funny, isn't it?"
Roland agreed with her. To him it was amazing.
"Well," Dolly went on, "I saw quite clearly that there was nothing for
it but that she must get hold of another young chap like your friend.
And I asked her if there was anyone else up at the school she fancied,
and she said, yes, there was; a boy she's seen you talking to once or
twice; a young, fair-haired fellow with a blue and yellow hat ribbon.
That's the best I can do. Is that any help to you? Would you know him?"
A blue and yellow hat ribbon limited the selection to members of the
School XI., and there was only one old colour who answered to that
description--Brewster in Carus Evans'.
"Oh, yes, I know him."
"Well, now, don't you think you could arrange it? Do, for my sake."
"But I don't know him well enough. I don't see how I could."
"Oh, yes, you do. Haven't I seen you talking together, and he would be
only too pleased. I am sure he would. Betty's such a nice girl. Now, do
try."
Roland promised that he would do his best, though it was not a job he
particularly fancied. Brewster was the youngest member of the XI. He
had been playing on lower side games all the season without attracting
any attention and had then surprised everyone by making a century in an
important house match. He was immediately transplanted to the first, and
though he played in only two matches he was considered to have earned
his colours. He was not, however, in any sense of the word a blood. He
was hardly known by men of Roland's standing in other houses. He was low
in form and not particularly brilliant at football. Roland knew next to
nothing about him. Still it was a fascinating situation--a girl like
Betty, who must be a good three years older than Dolly, getting keen on
such a kid. Was she in love, he wondered. He had never met anyone who
had enjoyed the privilege of having a girl in love with him. For towards
the end he had believed very little that Howard had told him. It was an
intriguing affair. And so he set himself to his task.
The difficulty, of course, was to find the auspicious moment. He hardly
ever saw Brewster except when there were a lot of other people about,
and he didn't want to ask him across to his study. People would talk;
and, besides, it would not do to spring this business on him suddenly.
He would have to lead up to it carefully. For a whole week he sought,
unsuccessfully, for an opportunity, and on the Sunday he had to confess
to Dolly that he was no nearer the attainment of her friend's desires.
"It's not as easy as you seem to think it is. We are not in the same
house, we are not in the same form, and we don't play footer on the same
ground. In fact, except that we happen to be in the same school----"
"Now! now! now! Haven't I seen you talking to him alone twice before I
even mentioned him to you? And if you could be alone with him then, when
you had no particular reason to, surely you can manage to be now, when
you have."
"But, my dear Dolly----"
"There've not got to be any buts. Either you bring along your friend or
it's all over between us."
It was not a very serious threat, and at any other stage of their
relationship Roland, considering the bother that the affair involved,
might have been glad enough to accept it as an excuse for his dismissal.
But he had determined to bring this thing off. He thought of Betty,
large, black-haired, bright-eyed, highly coloured, her full lips
moistened by the red tongue that slipped continually between them, and
Brewster, fair-haired and slim and shy. It would be amusing to see what
they would make of one another. He would carry the business through, and
as a reward for this determination luck, two days later, came his way.
He drew Brewster in the second round of the Open Fives.
On the first wet day they played it off, and as Roland was a poor
performer and Brewster a tolerably efficient one the game ended in under
half-an-hour. They had, therefore, the whole afternoon before them, and
Roland suggested that as soon as they had changed they should have tea
together in his study.
For Roland it was an exciting afternoon; he was playing, for the first
time in his life, the part of a diplomat. He had read a good many
novels in which the motive was introduced, but there it had been a
very different matter. The stage had been set skilfully; each knew the
other's thoughts without being sure of his intention; there was a rapier
duel of thrust and parry. But here the stage was set for nothing in
particular. Brewster was unaware of dramatic tension; his main idea was
to eat as much as possible.
With infinite care Roland led the conversation to a discussion of the
mentality of women. He enlarged on a favourite theme of his--the fact
that girls often fell in love with really ugly men. "I can't understand
it," he said. "Girls are such delicate, refined creatures. They want
the right coloured curtains in their bedrooms and the right coloured
cushion for their sofas; they spend hours discussing the right shade
of ribbon for their hair, and then they go and fall in love with a
ridiculous-looking man. Look at Morgan, now. He's plain and he's
bald and he's got an absurd, stubby moustache, and yet his wife is
frightfully pretty, and she seems really keen on him. I don't understand
it."
Brewster agreed that it was curious, and helped himself to another cake.
"I suppose," said Roland, "that a fellow like you knows a good deal
about girls?"
Brewster shook his head. The subject presented few attractions to him.
"No," he said, "I don't really know anything at all about them. I
haven't got a sister."
"But you don't learn about girls from your sister."
"Perhaps not. But if you haven't got a sister you don't run much chance
of seeing anyone else's. We don't know any decent ones. A few of my
friends have sisters, but they seem pretty fair asses. I keep out of
their way."
"That's rather funny, you know, because you're the sort of fellow that
girls run after."
As Roland had been discussing for some time the ugliness of the type of
man that appealed most to girls, this was hardly a compliment. Brewster
did not notice it, however. Indeed, he evinced no great interest in the
conversation. He was enjoying his tea.
"Oh, I don't think I am," he said. "At any rate none of them have run
after me, so far."
"That's all you know," said Roland, and his voice assumed a tone that
made Brewster look up quickly.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, I know someone who is doing their best to."
Brewster flushed; the hand that was carrying a cream cake to his mouth
paused in mid air.
"A girl! Who?"
"That's asking."
Roland had at last succeeded in arousing Brewster's curiosity, and he
was wise enough to refrain from satisfying it at once. If he were to
tell him that a girl down town had wanted to go for a walk with him,
Brewster would have laughed and probably thought no more about it. He
would have to fan his interest till Brewster's imagination had had time
to play upon the idea.
"She's very pretty," Roland said, "and she asked me who you were.
She was awfully keen to meet you, but I told her that it was no good
and that you wouldn't care for that sort of thing. She was very
disappointed."
"Yes, but who is she?"
"I'm not going to tell you that. Why should I give her away?"
"Oh, but do tell me."
Roland was firm.
"No; I'm jolly well not going to. It's her secret. You don't want to
meet her, do you?"
"No," Brewster grudgingly admitted; "but I'd like to know."
"I daresay you would, but I'm not going to give away a confidence.
Suppose you told me that you were keen on a girl and that you'd heard
she wouldn't have anything to do with anyone, you wouldn't like me to go
and tell her who you were, would you?"
"No."
"Of course you wouldn't. That's the sort of thing one keeps to oneself."
"Yes; but as I shall never see her----"
Roland adopted in reply the stern tone of admonition, "Of course not;
but if I told you, you'd take jolly good care that you did see her, and
then you'd tell someone else. You'd point her out and say, 'That girl
wanted me to come out for a walk with her.' You know you would, and of
course the other fellow would promise not to tell anyone and of course
he would. It would be round the whole place in a week, and think how the
poor girl would feel being laughed at by everyone because a fellow four
years younger than herself wouldn't have anything to do with her."
"What! Four years older than me."
"About that."
"And she's pretty, you say?"
"Jolly."
There was a pause.
"You know, Whately," he began, "I'd rather ..." then broke off. "Oh,
look here, do tell me."
Roland shook his head.
"I don't give away secrets."
"But why did you tell me anything about it at all?"
"I don't know; it just cropped up, didn't it? I thought it might amuse
you."
"Well, I think it's rotten of you. I shan't be able to think of anything
else until I know."
Which was, of course, exactly what Roland wanted. He knew how Brewster's
imagination would play with the idea. Betty would become for him
strange, wistful, passionate. Four years older than himself he would
picture her as the Lilith of old, the eternal temptress. In herself
she was nothing. If he had met her in the streets two days earlier he
would have hardly noticed her. "A pleasant, country girl," he would have
said, and let her pass out of his thoughts. But now the imagination
that colours all things would make her irresistible, and when he met her
she would be identified with his dream.
Next morning Brewster ran across to him during break.
"I say, Whately, do tell me who she is."
"No; I told you I wasn't going to."
"Well, then. Oh, look here! Is it Dorothy Jones?"
Dorothy Jones was the daughter of the owner of a cycle shop and was much
admired in the school.
"Would you like it to be?" Roland asked.
"I don't know. Perhaps. But is it, though?"
"Perhaps."
"It is Dorothy Jones, isn't it? It is her?"
"If you know, why do you ask me?"
"Oh, don't be a fool! Is it Dorothy Jones?"
"Perhaps."
"Well, if it isn't her, is it Mary Gardiner?"
"It is Mary Gardiner," Roland mocked. "It is she, isn't it?"
"Oh, you're awful," said Brewster, and walked away.
But that evening he came over to the School house studies and, just
before Hall, a small boy ran across to the reading-room to tell Roland
that Brewster was in the cloisters and would like to speak to him.
"Well," said Roland, "and what is it?"
"It's about the girl."
Roland affected a weary impatience.
"Oh, Lord, but I thought we'd finished with all that. I told you that I
wasn't going to give her away."
"Yes, I know; but ... ah, well, look here, I must know who the girl is.
No, don't interrupt. Will you tell me if I promise to come out with her
once?"
Roland thought for a moment. He had his man now, but it would not do to
hurry things. He must play for safety a little longer.
"Oh, yes, I know that game," he said. "I shall tell you her name and
then you'll wish you hadn't promised and you'll get frightened, and when
the time comes you will have sprained an ankle in a house match and
won't be able to come for a walk. That won't do at all."
"But I swear I wouldn't do that," Brewster protested. "Really, I
wouldn't."
"Yes, and I promised that I wasn't going to tell."
"But that's so silly. Suppose now that I was really keen on her. For all
you know, or I, for that matter, I may have seen her walking about the
town and thought her jolly pretty without knowing who she was."
"And I'm damned certain you haven't. You told me that you didn't take
any interest in girls."
"No, but really, honest, man, I may have seen her. Only this morning as
I was going down to Fort's after breakfast I saw an absolutely ripping
girl, and I believe it was me she smiled at. It's very likely her."
"Yes, yes, I dare say, but----"
"Oh, come on, do tell me, and I promise you I'll come and see her;
honest, I will."
But at that moment the roll-bell issued its cracked summons.
"If you don't run like sin you'll be late for roll-call, and that'll
finish everything," Roland said, and Brewster turned and sprinted across
the courts.
Roland walked back to his study in a mood of deep self-satisfaction. He
was carrying an extremely difficult job to a triumphant close. It did
not occur to him that the rôle he filled was not a particularly noble
one and that an unpleasantly worded label could be discovered for it. He
was living in the days of unreflecting action. He did, or refrained from
doing, the things he wanted to do, without a minute analysis of motive,
but in accordance with a definite code of rules. He lived his life as he
played cricket. There were rewards and there were penalties. If you hit
across a straight long hop you ran a chance of being leg before, and if
the ball hit your pad you went straight back to the pavilion. You played
to win, but you played the game, provided that you played it according
to the rules. It did not matter to Roland what the game was. And the
affair of Betty and Brewster was a game that he was winning fairly and
squarely.
Next morning he achieved victory. He met Brewster during break and
presented his ultimatum.
"I won't tell you her name," he said. "I promised not to. It wouldn't be
the game. But I tell you what I will do, though. If you'll promise to
come out for a walk with me on Sunday I'll arrange for her to meet us
somewhere, and then you can see what you think of each other. Now, what
do you say to that?"
Brewster's curiosity was so roused that he accepted eagerly, and next
Sunday they set out together towards Cold Harbour.
About a mile and a half from the school a sunken lane ran down the side
of a steep hill towards the railway. The lane could be approached from
two sides, and from the shelter of a thick hedge it was possible to
observe the whole country-side without being seen. It was here that they
had arranged their meeting.
They found the two girls waiting when they arrived. Betty looked very
smart in a dark blue coat and skirt and a small hat that fitted tightly
over her head. She smiled at Roland, and the sight, after months, of her
fresh-coloured face, with its bright eyes and wide, moist mouth, sent a
sudden thrill through him--half fear, half excitement.
"So you've managed to arrange it," said Dolly. "How clever of you."
"Very nice of him to come," said Betty, her eyes fixed on Brewster, who
stood awkwardly, his hands in his pockets, kicking one heel against the
other.
For a few minutes they talked together, stupid, inconsequent badinage,
punctuated by giggles, till Betty, as usual, reminded them that they
would only have an hour together.
"About time we paired off, isn't it?"
"I suppose so," said Roland. "Come along, Dolly," and they began to walk
down the lane. At the corner they turned and saw the other two standing
together--Betty, taller, confident and all-powerful; Brewster, looking
up at her, scared and timid, his hands clasped behind him.
"He looks a bit shy, doesn't he?" said Dolly.
Roland laughed.
"He won't be for long, I expect."
"Rather not. He'll soon get used to her. Betty doesn't let her boys stop
shy with her for long. She makes them do as she wants them."
And when they returned an hour later they saw the two sitting side by
side chatting happily. But as soon as they reached them Brewster became
silent and shy, and looked neither of them in the face.
"Had a good time?" asked Dolly.
"Ask him," she answered.
And they laughed, all except Brewster, and made arrangements to meet
again, only a little earlier the next week.
"Well," said Roland, as soon as they were out of earshot, "and how did
you enjoy yourself?"
Brewster admitted that it had been pretty good.
"Only pretty good?"
"Well, I don't know," he said, "it was all right. Yes, it was ripping,
really; but it was so different from what I had expected."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, well, you know. I felt so awkward; she started everything. I
didn't have any say in it at all. I had thought it was up to me to do
all that."
"Betty's not that sort."
"No, but it's a funny business."
"You are coming out next week, though?"
"Rather!"
And next week Dolly, as soon as she was alone with Roland, began to ask
him questions about Brewster: "What did he say to you? What did he think
of her? Was she nice to him? You must tell me all about it."
"Oh, I think he enjoyed himself all right. She startled him a bit."
"Did she? What did he say? Do tell me."
She asked him question after question, and he had to repeat to her every
word he could remember of Brewster's conversation. Did he still feel
shy? Did he think Betty beautiful? Was he at all in love with her? And
then Roland began to ask what Betty had thought of Brewster. Had she
preferred him to Howard? She wasn't disappointed in him? Did she like
him better than the other boys? They talked eagerly.
"Wouldn't it be fun to go back and have a look at them?" said Dolly.
"I'd give anything to see them together."
Their eyes met, and suddenly, with a fervour they had never reached
before, they kissed.
CHAPTER VI
APRIL'S LOOKING-GLASS
For April the term which brought Roland so much excitement was slow in
passing. In spite of the disastrous evening at the ball, Roland's return
to school left a void in her life. When she woke in the morning and
stretched herself in bed before getting up she would ask herself what
good thing she could expect that day to bring her. When she felt happy
she would demand the reason of herself. "Over what are you happy?" she
would ask herself. "In five minutes' time you will get up. You will
put on your dressing-gown and hurry down the corridor to the bathroom.
You will dress hurriedly, but come down all the same a little late for
breakfast. You will find that your father has eaten, as is his wont,
more than his share of toast, which will mean that you, being the last
down, will have to go without it. You will rush down to school saying
over to yourself the dates of your history lesson. You will hang your
hat and coat on the fourth row of pegs and on the seventh peg from the
right. From nine o'clock to ten you will be heard your history lesson.
From ten o'clock till eleven you will take down notes on chemistry.
From eleven to a quarter past there will be an interval, during which
you will try to find a friend to help you with the Latin translation,
of which you prepared only the first thirty lines last night. From a
quarter-past eleven till a quarter-past twelve you will be heard that
lesson. At a quarter-past twelve you will attend a lecture on English
literature, which will last till one o'clock. You will then have lunch,
and as to-day is Tuesday you know that your lunch will consist of boiled
mutton and caper sauce, followed by apple dumpling. In the afternoon
you will have gymnastics and a music lesson, after which there will be
an hour of Mademoiselle's French conversation class. You will then come
home. You will hurry your tea in the hope of being able to finish your
preparation before your father comes back from the office at twenty
minutes to seven, because when once he is back your mother will begin to
talk, and when she begins to talk work becomes impossible. You will then
dine with your parents at half-past seven. You will sit perfectly quiet
at the table and not say a word, while your mother talks and talks and
father listens and occasionally says, 'Yes, mother,' or 'No, mother.'
After dinner you will read a book in the drawing-room till your mother
reminds you that it is nine o'clock and time that you were in bed. You
have, in fact, before you a day similar in every detail to yesterday,
and similar in every detail to to-morrow. If you think anything
different is going to happen to you then you are a little fool." And
April would have to confess that this self-catechism was true. "Nothing
happens," she would say. "One day is like another, and I am a little
fool to wake up in the morning excited about nothing at all."
But all the same she was excited and she did feel, in spite of reason,
that something was bound to happen soon. "Things cannot go on like this
for ever," she told herself. And, looking into the future, she came
gradually to look upon the day of Roland's return from school as the
event which would alter, in a way she could not discern, the whole tenor
of her life. It was not in these words that the idea was presented to
her. "It may be different during the holidays when Roland is here."
That was her first thought, from which the words "when Roland is here"
detached themselves, starting another train of thought, that "Life when
Roland is here is always different"; and she began to look forward
to the holidays, counting the days till his return. "Things will be
different then."
It was not love, it was not friendship; it was simply the belief that
Roland's presence would be a key to that world other than this, of which
shadowy intimations haunted her continually. Roland became the focus for
her disquiet, her longing, her vague appreciation of the eternal essence
made manifest for her in the passing phenomena of life.
"When Roland comes back ..." And though she marked on the calendar that
hung in her bedroom April 2, the last day of her own term, with a big
red cross, it was April 5 that she regarded as the real beginning of her
holidays. And when she came down to breakfast and her father said to
her, "Only seven more days now, April," she would answer gaily, "Yes,
only a week. Isn't it lovely?" But to herself she would add, "Ten days,
only ten days more!"
And so she missed altogether the usual last day excitement. She did not
wake on that first morning happy with the delicious thought that she
could lie in bed for an extra ten minutes if she liked. She had not yet
begun her holidays.
But two days later she was in a fever of expectation. In twenty-four
hours' time Roland would be home. How slowly the day passed. In the
evening she said she was tired and went to bed before dinner, so that
the next day might come quickly for her. But when she got to bed she
found that she could not sleep, and though she repeated the word
"abracadabra" many hundred times and counted innumerable sheep passing
through innumerable gates, she lay awake till after midnight, hearing
hour after hour strike. And when at last sleep came to her it was light
and fitful and she woke often.
Next day she did not know what to do with herself. She tried to read and
could not. She tried to sew and could not. She ran up and down stairs
on trifling errands in order to pass the time. In vain she tried to
calm herself. "What are you getting so excited about? What do you think
is going to happen? What can happen? The most that can happen is that
he will come round with his father in the evening, and you know well
enough by now what that will mean. Your mother will talk and his father
will say, 'Yes, Mrs Curtis,' and 'Really, Mrs Curtis,' and you and
Roland will hardly exchange a word with one another. You are absurdly
excited over nothing."
But logic was of no avail, and all the afternoon she fidgeted with
impatience. By tea-time she was in a state of repressed hysteria. She
sat in the window-seat looking down the road in the direction from which
he would have to come. "I wonder if he will come without his father. It
would be so dear of him if he would, but I don't suppose he will. No, of
course he won't. It's silly of me to think of it. He'll have to wait for
his father; he always does. That means he won't be here at the earliest
till after six. And it's only ten minutes to five now."
And to make things worse, seldom had she found her mother more annoying.
"Now, why don't you go for a walk, April, dear?" she said. "It's such a
lovely evening and you've been indoors nearly all day. It isn't good,
and I was saying to your father only the other day, 'Father, dear, I'm
sure April isn't up to the mark. She looks so pale nowadays.'"
"I'm all right, mother."
"No, but are you, dear? You're looking really pale. I'm sure I ought to
ask Dr Dunkin to come and see you."
"But I'm all right--really, I'm all right, mother. I know when anything
is wrong with me."
"But you don't, April, dear. That's just the point. Don't you remember
that time when you insisted on going to the tennis party and assured
us that you were quite well, and when you came back we found you had
a temperature of 101° and that you were sickening for measles? I was
saying to Dr Dunkin only this morning: 'Dr Dunkin, I'm really not
satisfied about our little April. I think I shall have to ask you to
give her a tonic'; and he said to me: 'Yes, that's right, Mrs Curtis;
you bring me along to her and I'll set her straight.'"
April put her hands up to her head and tried not to listen, but her
mother's voice flowed on:
"And now, dear, do go out for a walk--just a little one."
"But, mother, dear, I don't want to, really, and I'm feeling so tired."
"There, what did I say? You're feeling tired and you've done nothing all
day. There must be something wrong with you. I shall certainly ask Dr
Dunkin to come and see you to-morrow."
"Oh, yes, yes, yes, mother. I'll do anything you like to-morrow. If
you'll only leave me alone to-night."
But Mrs Curtis went on talking, and April grew more and more
exasperated, and the minutes went past and Roland did not come. Six
struck and half-past six, and a few minutes later she heard her father's
latch-key in the door. And then the whole question of her health was
dragged out again.
"I was saying to you only yesterday, father, that our little April
wasn't as well as she ought to be. She has overworked, I think. Last
night she went to bed early and to-day she looks quite pale, and she
says that she feels tired although she hasn't really done anything. I
must send for Dr Dunkin to-morrow."
It seemed to April that the voice would never stop. It beat and beat
upon her brain, like the ticking of the watch that reminded her of the
flying moments. "He won't come now," she said; "he won't come now."
Seven o'clock had struck, the lamps were lit, evening had descended upon
the street. He had never come as late as this before. But she still sat
at the window, gazing down the street towards the figures, that became
distinct for a moment in the lamplight. "He will not come now," she
said, and suddenly she felt limp, tired, incapable of resistance. She
put her head upon her knees and began to sob.
In a moment her mother's arms were round her. "But, darling, what is it,
April, dear?"
She could not speak. She shook her head, tried desperately to make a
sign that she was all right, that she would rather be left alone; but
it was no use. She felt too bitterly the need for human sympathy. She
turned, flung her arms about her mother's neck, and began to sob and
sob.
"Oh, mother, mother," she cried. "I'm so miserable. I don't know what to
do. I don't know what to do."
* * * * *
Next morning Dr Dunkin felt her pulse, prescribed a tonic and told her
not to stay too much indoors.
"Now, you'll be all right, dear," her mother said. "Dr Dunkin's
medicines are splendid."
April smiled quietly. "Yes, I expect that was what was wanted. I think I
worked a little too hard last term."
"I'm sure you did, my dear. I shall write to Mrs Clarke about it. I
can't have my little girl getting run down."
And that afternoon April met Roland in the High Street. It was the first
time that she had seen him alone since the evening of the dance, and
she found him awkward and embarrassed. They said a few things of no
importance--about the holidays, the weather and their acquaintances.
Then April said that she must be going home, and Roland made no effort
to detain her--did not even make any suggestion about coming round to
see her.
"So that is what you have been looking forward to for over a month,"
she said to herself, as he passed out of sight behind an angle of the
road. "This is the date you wanted to mark upon your calendar with a
red cross. Little fool. What did you think you were doing? And what has
it turned out to be in the end? Five minutes' discussion of indifferent
things. A fine event to make such a fuss about; and what else did you
expect?"
She was not bitter. It was one of those mild days that in early spring
surprise us with a promise of summer, on which the heart is stirred with
the crowded glory of life and the sense of widening horizons. The long
stretch of roofs and chimney stacks became beautiful in the subdued
sunlight. It was an hour that in the strong might have quickened the
hunger for adventure, but that to April brought a mood of chastened,
quiet resignation. She appreciated, as she had not done before, the
tether by which her scope was measured. For the last month she had made
Roland's return a focus for the ambitions and desires and yearnings
towards an intenser way of living, for which of herself she had been
unable to find expression. This, in a confused manner, she understood.
"I can do nothing by myself. I have to live in other people. And what I
am now I shall be always. All my life I shall be dependent on someone
else, or on some interest that is outside myself. And whether I am happy
or unhappy depends upon some other person. That is my nature, and I
cannot go beyond my nature." When she reached home she sat for a long
time in the window-seat, her hands folded in her lap. "This will be
my whole life," she said. "I am not of those who may go out in search
of happiness." And she thought that if romance did not come to her,
she would remain all her life sitting at a window. "Of myself I can do
nothing."
CHAPTER VII
A SORRY BUSINESS
April did not see very much of Roland during the holidays, and was not,
on the whole, sorry. Now that the hysterical excitement over his return
had passed, she judged it better to let their friendship lapse. She did
not want any repetition of that disastrous evening, and thought that it
would be easier to resume their friendship on its old basis after the
long interval of the summer term. Roland was still a little piqued by
what he considered her absurd behaviour, and had resolved to let the
first step come from her.
This estrangement was a disappointment to his people.
"Have you noticed, my dear, that Roland's hardly been round to the
Curtises' at all these holidays?" Mr Whately said to his wife one
evening. "I hope there has not been a row or anything. I rather wish
you'd try and find out."
And so next day Mrs Whately made a guarded remark to her son about
April's appearance: "What a big girl she's getting. And she's prettier
every day. If you're not careful you'll have all the boys in the place
running after her and cutting you out."
Roland answered in an off-hand manner, "They can for all I care,
mother."
"Oh, but, Roland, you shouldn't say that; I thought you were getting on
so well together last holidays. We were even saying----"
But Roland never allowed himself to be forced into a confidence.
"Oh, please, mother, don't. There was nothing in it; really, there
wasn't."
"You haven't had a row, have you, Roland?"
"Of course not, mother. What should we have a row about?"
"I don't know, dear. I only thought----"
"Well, you needn't worry about us, mother; we're all right."
Roland was by no means pleased at what seemed to him a distinct case
of interference. It arrived, too, at a most inopportune moment, for he
had been just then wondering whether he ought not to forget about his
high-minded resolves and try to make it up with April. His mother's
inquiries, however, decided him. He was not going to have others
arranging that sort of thing for him. "And for all I know," he said
to himself, "Mrs Curtis may be at the back of this. I shan't go round
there again these holidays." And this was the more unfortunate, because
if the intimacy between Roland and April had been resumed, it is more
than likely that Roland, at the beginning of the summer term, would
have decided to give up Dolly altogether. Both he and Brewster were a
little tired of it; the first interest had passed, and they had actually
discussed the wisdom of dropping the whole business.
"After all," said Brewster, "it can't go on for ever. It'll have to stop
some time, and next term we shall both be fairly high in the school,
house prefects and all that, and we shall have to be pretty careful what
we do."
Roland was inclined to agree with him, but his curiosity was still
awake.
"It's not so easy to break a thing like this. Let's wait till the end of
the term. The summer holidays are a long time, and by the time we come
back they'll very likely have picked up someone else."
"All right," said Brewster, "I don't mind. And it does add an interest
to things."
And so the affair went on smoothly and comfortably, a pleasant interlude
among the many good gifts of a summer term--cricket and swimming and
the long, lazy evenings. Nothing, indeed, occurred to ruffle the
complete happiness of Roland's life, till one Monday morning during
break Brewster came running across to the School house studies with the
disastrous news that his house master had found out all about it. It had
happened thus:
On the previous Saturday Roland had sent up a note in break altering
the time of an appointment. It was the morning of a school match and
Brewster received the note on his way down to the field. He was a little
late, and as soon as he had read the note he shoved it into his pocket
and thought no more about it. During the afternoon he slipped, trying
to bring off a one-handed catch in the slips, and tore the knee of his
trousers. The game ended late and he had only just time to change and
take his trousers round to the matron to be mended before lock-up. In
the right-hand pocket the matron discovered Roland's note, and, judging
its contents singular, placed it before Mr Carus Evans.
As Roland walked back with Brewster from the tuck-shop a small boy ran
up to tell him that Mr Carus Evans would like to see him directly after
lunch.
Roland was quite calm as he walked up the hill three hours later. One
is only frightened when one is uncertain of one's fate. When a big row
is on, in which one may possibly be implicated, one endures agonies,
wondering whether or not one will be found out. But when it is settled,
when one is found out, what is there to do? One must let things take
their course; nothing can alter it. There is no need for fret or fever.
Roland was able to consider his position with detached interest.
He had been a fool to send that note. Notes always got lost or dropped
and the wrong people picked them up. How many fellows had not got
themselves bunked that way, notes and confirmation? They were the two
great menaces, the two hidden rocks. Probably confirmation was the
more dangerous. On the whole, more fellows had got the sack through
confirmation, but notes were not much better. What an ass he had been.
He would never send a note again, never; he swore it to himself, and
then reflected a little dismally that he might very likely never have
the opportunity.
Still, that was rather a gloomy view to take. And he stood more chance
with Carus Evans than he would have done with any other master.
Carus Evans had always hated him, and because he hated him would be
desperately anxious to treat him fairly. As a result he would be sure to
underpunish him. It is always safer to have a big row with a master who
dislikes you than with one who is your friend. And from this reflection
Roland drew what comfort he might.
Mr Carus Evans sat writing at his desk when Roland came in. He looked up
and then went on with his letter. It was an attempt to make Roland feel
uncomfortable and to place him at the start at a disadvantage. It was
a characteristic action, for Carus Evans was a weak man. His house was
probably the slackest in the school. It had no one in the XV., Brewster
was its sole representative in the XI. and it did not possess one school
prefect. This should not have been, for Carus Evans was a bachelor and
all his energies were available. He had no second interest to attract
him, but he was weak when he should have been strong; he chose the wrong
prefects and placed too much confidence in them. He was not a natural
leader.
For a good two minutes he went on writing, then put down his pen.
"Ah, yes, yes, Whately. Sit down, will you? Now then, I've been talking
to one of the boys in my house and it seems that you and he have been
going out together and meeting some girls in the town. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the suggestion came from you, I gather?"
"Yes, sir."
"This is a very serious thing, Whately. I suppose you realise that?"
"I suppose so, sir."
"Of course it is, and especially so for a boy in your position. Now,
I don't know what attitude the headmaster will adopt, but of this I
am quite certain. A great deal will depend on whether you tell me the
truth. I shall know if you tell me a lie. You've got to tell me the
whole story. Now, how did this thing start?"
"On the first night of the Christmas term, sir."
"How?"
"I met them at a dance in the pageant grounds."
"The pageant grounds are out of bounds. You ought to know that."
"It was the first night, sir."
"Don't quibble with me. They're out of bounds. Well, what happened
next?"
"I danced with her, sir."
"Were you alone?"
"No, sir."
"Who was with you?"
"I can't tell you, sir."
"If you don't tell me----"
"He's left now, sir. It wouldn't be fair."
They looked each other in the face and in that moment Carus Evans
realised that, in spite of their positions, Roland was the stronger.
"Oh, well, never mind that; we can leave it till later on. And I suppose
you made an appointment?"
"No, sir."
"What?"
"You asked me if I made an appointment, sir. I answered I didn't."
Roland was not going to give him the least assistance. Indeed, in the
joy of being able to play once again the old game of baiting masters,
that had delighted him so much when he had been in the middle school
and that he had to abandon so reluctantly when he attained the dignity
of the Fifths and Sixths, he had almost forgotten that he was in a
singularly difficult situation. He would make "old Carus" ask him a
question for every answer that he gave. And he saw that for the moment
Carus had lost his length.
"Well, then, let me see. Yes, well--er--well, where did you meet her
next?"
"In a lane beyond Cold Harbour, sir."
"Did you go there alone?"
"No, sir."
"You were with this other fellow?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what did you do?"
"Do, sir?"
"Yes, do. Didn't you hear me?"
"Yes, sir, but, Do? I don't quite understand you. What exactly do you
mean by the word 'do'?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean, Whately. You flirted, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. I suppose that's what I did do. I flirted."
"I mean you held her hand?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you kissed her?"
"Yes, sir."
"Disgusting! Simply disgusting! Is this place a heathen brothel or a
Christian school?" Carus' face was red, and he drove his fingers through
the hair at the back of his neck. "You go out on a Sunday afternoon and
kiss a shop-girl. What a hobby for a boy in the XV. and Sixth!" And he
began to stamp backwards and forwards up and down the room.
This fine indignation did not, however, impress Roland in the least.
Carus appeared to him to be less disgusted than interested--pruriently
interested--and that he was angry with himself rather than with Roland,
because he knew instinctively that he was not feeling as a master should
feel when confronted with such a scandal. It was a forced emotion that
was inspiring the fierce flow of words.
"Do you know what this sort of thing leads to?" he was saying. "But, of
course, you do. I could trust you to know anything like that. Your whole
life may be ruined by it."
"But I didn't do anything wrong."
"Perhaps you didn't, not this time, though I've only your word for
it; but you would have, sooner or later, under different conditions.
There's only one end to that sort of thing. And even if you were all
right yourself, how did you know that Brewster was going to be? That's
the beastly part of it. That's what sickens me with you. Your own life
is your own to do what you like with, but you've no right to contaminate
others. You encourage this young fellow to go about with a girl four
years older than himself, about whom you know nothing. How could you
tell what might be happening to him? He may not have your self-control.
He'd never have started this game but for you, and now that he's once
begun he may be unable to break himself of it. You may have ruined his
whole life, mayn't you?"
Roland considered the question.
"I suppose so, but I didn't look at it that way."
"Of course, you didn't. But it's the results that count. That's what
you've got to keep in mind; actions are judged by their results. And
now, what do you imagine is going to happen to you? I suppose you know
that if I go across and report you to the headmaster that it'll mean the
next train back to London?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if I did, you'd have no cause for complaint. It would be what you'd
deserved, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
There was a pause. They looked at each other. Carus Evans hoped that he
had frightened Roland, but he had not. Roland knew that Carus did not
intend to get him expelled. He would not have talked like that if he
had. He was trying to make Roland feel that he was conferring a favour
on him in allowing him to stop on.
"There's no reason why I should feel kindly disposed towards you," Carus
said. "We've never got on well together. You've worked badly in my form.
I've never regarded you as a credit to the school. When you were a
small boy you were rowdy and bumptious, and now that you have reached a
position of authority you have become superior and conceited. There's
no reason why I, personally, should wish to see you remain a member of
the school. As regards my own house, I cannot yet judge what harm you
may have done me. You've started the poison here. Brewster will have
told his friends. One bad apple will corrupt a cask. I don't know what
trouble you may have laid up for me."
"No, sir."
"But all the same, I know what it means to expel a boy. He's a marked
man for life. I'm going to give you another chance."
"Thank you, sir."
"But you've got to make this thing good first. You've got to go to the
headmaster yourself and tell him all about it--now, at once. Do you
see?"
"Yes, sir."
It was going to be an awkward business, and Roland made no attempt to
conceal it from himself. It was just on the half-hour as he walked
across the courts. Afternoon school was beginning. Groups had collected
round the classrooms, waiting for the master to let them in. Johnson
waved to him from a study window and told him to hurry up and help them
with the con.
"Don't wait for me," Roland called back. "I've got one or two things to
do. I shall be a little late."
"Slacker," Johnson laughed.
It was funny to see the machine revolving so smoothly, with himself, to
all outward appearance, a complacently efficient cog in it. He supposed
that a criminal must feel like this when he watched people hurry past
him in the streets; all of them so intent upon their own affairs and
himself seemingly one with them, but actually so much apart.
He knocked at the headmaster's door.
"Come in."
The headmaster was surprised to see Roland at such an hour.
"Yes, Whately?" he said, and then appeared to remember something, and
began to fumble among some papers on his desk. "One moment, Whately; I
knew there was something I wanted to speak to you about. Ah, yes, here
it is. Your essay on Milton. Will you just come over here a minute? I
wanted to have a few words with you about it. Sit down, won't you? Now,
let me see, where is it? Ah, yes, here it is: now you say, 'Milton was a
Puritan in spite of himself. Satan is the hero of the poem.' Now I want
to be quite certain what you mean by that. I'm not going to say that you
are wrong. But I want you to be quite certain in your own mind as to
what you mean yourself."
And Roland began to explain how Milton had let himself be carried away
by his theme, that his nature was so impregnated by the sense of defeat
that defeat seemed to him a nobler thing than victory. Satan had become
the focus for his emotions on the overthrow of the Commonwealth.
"Yes, yes, I see that, but surely, Whately, the Commonwealth was
the Puritan party. If Milton was so distressed by the return of the
Royalists, how do you square this view with your statement, 'Milton
was a Puritan in spite of himself'? Surely if his puritanism was only
imposed, he would have welcomed the return of the drama and a more
highly coloured life."
Roland made a gallant effort to explain, but all the time he kept saying
to himself, "I came here for a confessional, and yet here I am sitting
down in the Chief's best arm-chair, enjoying a friendly chat. I must
stop it somehow." But it was excessively difficult. He began to lose the
thread of his argument and contradicted himself; and the Chief was so
patient, listening to him so attentively, waiting till he had finished.
"But, my dear Whately," the Chief said, "you've just said that _Comus_
is a proof of his love of colour and display, and yet you say in the
same breath...."
Would it never cease? And how on earth was he at the end going to
introduce the subject of his miserable amours? He had never anticipated
anything like this. But at last it was finished.
"You see what you've done, Whately? You've picked up a phrase somewhere
or other about the paganism of Milton and the nobility of Satan and you
have not taken the trouble to think it out. You've just accepted it. I
don't say that your statement could not be justified. But it's you who
should be able to justify it, not I. You should never make any statement
in an essay that you can't substantiate with facts. It's a good essay,
though, quite good." And he returned to his papers. He had forgotten
altogether that Roland had come unasked to see him.
It was one of the worst moments of Roland's life. He stood silent in the
middle of the room while the Chief continued his letter, thinking the
interview was at an end.
"Sir," he said at last.
The headmaster looked up quickly and said a little impatiently, for he
was a busy man and resented interruption, "Well, Whately? Yes; what is
it?"
"I came to see you, sir."
"Oh, yes, of course you did. I forgot. Well, what is it?"
"Sir, I've come to tell you that Mr Carus Evans told me to come and
report myself to you and say that--well, sir--that I've been going out
for walks with a girl in the town."
"What!"
"Yes, sir, a girl in the town, and that I'd asked a boy in his house to
come with me, sir."
The Chief rose from his chair and walked across to the mantelpiece.
There was a long pause.
"But I don't quite understand, Whately. You've been going out with some
girl in the town?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you've encouraged some boy in Mr Carus Evans' house to accompany
you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And he, I suppose, has been going for walks with a girl as well?"
"Yes, sir."
There was another long pause, during which Roland realised that he
had chosen the worst possible moment for his confession. Whatever
decision the Chief might arrive at would be influenced, not only by
his inevitable disappointment at the failure of a boy in whom he had
trusted, but by its violent contrast with the friendly discussion
over the essay and the natural annoyance of a busy man who has been
interrupted in an important piece of work to discuss an unpleasant
situation that has arisen unexpectedly. When the Chief at last began to
speak there was an impatience in his voice that would have been absent
if Roland had tackled him after dinner.
"I don't know," he said. "I am tempted sometimes to give up faith
in you fellows altogether. I never know where I am with any of you.
I feel as though I were sitting upon a volcano. Everything seems
quiet and satisfactory and then suddenly the volcano breaks out and I
find that the boys in whom I have placed, or am thinking of placing,
responsibility have deceived me. Do you realise the hypocrisy of your
behaviour during the last year? You have been meeting Mr Carus Evans and
myself on friendly, straightforward terms, with an open look on your
face, and all the time, behind our backs, you've been philandering with
girls in the town. I haven't asked you for any details and I am not
going to; that doesn't enter into the question at all. You've been false
and doublefaced. You've been acting a lie for a year. It's the sort of
thing that makes me sick of the whole lot of you. You can go."
Roland walked back to the studies, perplexed and miserable. The word
"deceit" had cut hard into him. He loathed crookedness and he had always
considered himself dead straight. It was a boast of his that he had
never told a lie, at least not to a boy; masters were different. Of
course they were, and it was absurd to pretend they weren't. Everyone
did things that they wouldn't care to tell the Chief. There was a
barrier between. The relationship was not open like friendship. He saw
the Chief's point of view, but he did not consider it a sound one. He
disliked these fine gradations of conduct, this talk of acting a lie:
things were either black or white. He remembered how the Chief had once
come round the upper dormitories and had endeavoured to persuade him
that it was acting a lie to get into bed without cleaning his teeth. He
had never understood why. An unclean act, perhaps, but acting a lie! oh,
no, it wouldn't do. It was an unfair method of tackling the problem.
It was hitting a man in the back, this appeal to a better nature. Life
should be played like cricket, according to rules. You could either
play for safety and score slowly, or you could run risks and hit across
straight half-volleys. If one missed it one was out and that was the
end of it. One didn't talk about acting a lie to the bowler because
one played at the ball as though it were outside the leg stump. Why
couldn't the Chief play the game like an umpire? Roland knew that he had
done a thing which, in the eyes of authority, was wrong. He admitted
that. He had known it was wrong all the time. He had been found out;
he was prepared for punishment. That was the process of life. One took
risks and paid the penalty. The issue was to Roland childishly simple,
and he could not see why all these good people should complicate it so
unnecessarily with their talk of hypocrisy and deceit.
That evening the headmaster wrote to Roland's father:
DEAR Mr WHATELY,--I write to inform you of a matter that will
cause you, I fear, a good deal of pain. I have discovered that for
the last year Roland has been in the habit of going out for walks
on Sunday afternoons with a young girl in the town, and that he
has encouraged another and younger boy to accompany him. These
walks resulted, I am sure, in nothing beyond a little harmless
flirtation, and I do not regard the actual issue as important. I
do consider, however, and I think that in this you will agree with
me, that Roland's conduct in the matter is most reprehensible. It
has involved a calculated and prolonged deception of you, his
parent, and of us, his schoolmasters, and he has proved himself,
I fear, unworthy of the responsibility of prefectship that I had
hoped to place in him next term. If he were a younger boy the
obvious course would be a sound thrashing. But Roland is too old
for that. Perhaps he is too old to be at school at all. The leaving
age of nineteen is arbitrary. Boys develop at such different ages;
and though I should not myself have thought so before this affair
arose, it may very well be that Roland has already passed beyond
the age at which it is wise and, indeed, safe to keep him any
longer at a school. For all we know, this trouble may prove to have
been a blessing in disguise, and will have protected him from more
serious difficulties. At any rate, I do not feel that I should be
doing my duty by you or by the other parents who place the welfare
of their boys in my hands if I were to keep Roland here after the
summer. There is, of course, in this not the least suggestion of
expulsion. Roland will leave at the end of the term with many of
his contemporaries in the ordinary course of events. And he will
become, if he wishes, as I hope he will wish, a member of the old
Fernhurstian Society. Perhaps you may yourself decide to come down
and have a talk with Roland. If so, perhaps we might discuss his
future together. I do not myself see why this should prejudice in
any way his going up to the University in a year's time. Of course
he could not go up now as he has not yet passed responsions.
I very much hope that you will come down and that we shall
be able to discuss the whole matter from every point of view.
Sincerely yours,
J. F. HARRISON.
This letter arrived at Hammerton by the evening post. Mr Whately had
that morning received a letter from Roland, written before the row, with
an account of a house game in which he had made 59 runs and taken 3
wickets. Mr Whately was most excited.
"He's really doing remarkably well," he said, after dinner. "He says
that he's pretty certain for his second XI. colours, and I can't think
why they don't give him a trial for the first. I know that Fernhurst
have a pretty strong side this year, but they ought to try all the men
they've got."
"He ought to get in next year at any rate," said his wife.
"Next year! Of course there should be no doubt about that at all. But
I should like to see him get in this. It will make a big difference to
his last term if he knows he's safe for his place. It's always a little
worrying having to play for one's colours, and I should like him to have
a really good last term. He's deserved it; he's worked hard; he's been a
real success at Fernhurst."
His soliloquy was at this point interrupted by the double knock of the
postman. Mr Whately jumped up at once.
"The Fernhurst postmark, my dear," he said. "I wonder what this can be
about. The headmaster's writing!"
He tore open the envelope eagerly and began to read.
"Well, dear?" said his wife.
He said nothing, but handed the letter across to her. She read it
through and then sat forward in her chair, her hands lying on her knees.
"Poor darling," she said. "So that's why he saw so little of April last
holidays."
"Yes, I suppose that's the reason."
"Do you think he was in love with her?"
"With April?"
"No, of course not, dear. With this girl at Fernhurst?"
"I don't know. How could I tell?"
And again they sat in silence. It was such a long while since they had
been called upon to face a serious situation. For many years now they
had lived upon the agreeable surface of an ordered life. They were
unprepared for this disquieting intrusion.
"And what's going to happen now?" she said at last. "I suppose you'll
have to go down and see him."
"Yes, I think so. Yes, certainly. I ought to go down to-morrow."
"And what will you say to him?"
"I don't know. What is it the headmaster says?"
She handed him the letter and he fumbled with it. "Here it is. 'I do
not see myself why this should prejudice in any way his going up to the
University.' That's what the headmaster says. But I don't really see
how we could manage it. After all, what would happen? He would have to
go to a crammer's and everyone would ask questions. We have always said
how good the Fernhurst education is, and now they'll begin to wonder
why we've changed our minds. If we take Roland away and send him to a
crammer's they would be sure to think something was up. You know what
people are. It would never do."
"No, I suppose not. But it seems rather hard on Roland if he's got to
give up Oxford."
"Well, it will be his own fault, won't it?"
"We haven't heard the whole story yet."
"I know; but what's the good of discussing it. He knew he was doing
something he ought not to be doing. He can't expect not to have to pay
for it."
And there was another pause.
"He was doing so well, too," she said.
"He would have been a prefect after the summer. He would have been
captain of his house. We should have been so proud of him."
"And it's all over now."
They did not discuss the actual trouble. He knew that on the next day
he would have to go over the whole thing with Roland, and he wanted
to be able to think it out in quiet. They were practical people, who
had spent the last fifteen years discussing the practical affairs of
ways and means. They had come nearest to each other when they had sat
before their account-books in the evening, balancing one column with
another, and at the end of it looking each other in the face, agreeing
that they would have to "cut down this expense," and that they could
"save a little there." The love of the senses had died out quickly
between them, but its place had been taken by a deep affection, by the
steady accumulation of small incidents of loyalty and unselfishness, of
difficulties faced and fought together. They had never ventured upon
first principles. They had fixed their attention upon the immediate
necessities of the moment.
And now, although Roland's moral welfare was a deep responsibility to
them, they spoke only of his career and of how they must shape it to fit
the new requirements. Mr Whately thought that he might be able to find a
post for him in the bank. But his wife was very much against it.
"Oh, no, dear, that would be terrible. Roland could never stand it; he's
such an open-air person. I can't bear to think of him cooped up at a
desk all his days."
"That's what my life's been."
"I know; but, Roland. Surely we can find something better for him than
that."
"I'll try. I don't know. Things like the Civil Service are impossible
for him now, and the Army's no use, and I've got no influence in the
City."
"But you must try, really, dear. It's awful to think of him committed to
a bank for the rest of his life just when he was doing so well."
"All right. I'll do my best."
A few minutes later he said that he was tired and would go to bed. At
the door he paused, walked back into the room and stood behind his wife.
He wanted to say something to show that he appreciated her sympathy,
that he was glad she was beside him in this disappointment, this hour
of trouble. But he did not know what to say. He stretched out a hand
timidly and touched her hair. She turned and looked up at him, and
without a word said put her arms slowly about his neck, drew his hand
down to her and kissed him. For a full minute he was pressed against
her. "Dear," he murmured, and though he mounted the stairs sadly, he
felt strengthened by that embrace of mutual disappointment.
He set off very early next morning, for he would have to go down to the
bank and make arrangements for his absence. He had hoped that Roland
would have written to them, but the post brought only a circular from a
turf accountant.
"Have you decided what you are going to say to him?" his wife asked.
"Not yet. I shall think it out in the train. I shall be able to say the
right thing when the time comes."
"You won't be hard to him. I expect he's very miserable."
It was a bad day for Mr Whately. During the long train journey through
fields and villages, vivid in the bright June sunlight, he wondered in
what spirit he should receive his son. Roland would be no doubt waiting
for him at the station. What would they say to each other? How would
they begin? He would have lunch, of course, at the Eversham Hotel, and
then, he supposed, he would have to see the headmaster. That would be
very difficult. He always felt shy in the headmaster's presence. The
headmaster was such an aristocrat; he was stamped with the hall-mark of
Eton and Balliol, while he himself was the manager of a bank in London.
He was always aware of his social inferiority in that book-lined study,
with the five austere reproductions of Greek sculpture. The interview
would be very difficult. But the headmaster would at least do most of
the talking; whereas with Roland.... Mr Whately shifted uneasily in
his corner seat. What on earth was he going to say? Something, surely,
about the moral significance of the act. Roland must realise that he
was guilty of really immoral conduct, and yet how was he to be made to
realise it? What arguments must be produced? Wherein lay the harm of
calf love? And looking back over his own life Mr Whately could not see
that there was any particular vice attached to it. It was absurd and
preposterous, but it was very pleasant. He remembered how he had once
fancied himself in love with his grandmother's housemaid. He used to get
up early in the morning so that he could sit with her while she laid the
grate, and he had knelt down beside her and joined his breath with hers
in a fierce attempt to kindle the timid flame. He had never kissed her,
but she had let him hold her hand, and the summer holidays had passed
in delicious reveries. He remembered also how, a little later, he had
fallen desperately in love with the girl at the tobacconist's, and he
could still recall the breathless excitement of that morning when he had
come into the shop and found it empty. For a second she had listened at
the door leading to the private part of the house and had then leant
forward over the counter: "Quick," she had whispered.
Mr Whately smiled at the recollection and then remembered suddenly for
what cause he was travelling down to Fernhurst. "I must say something
to him. What shall I say?" And for want of any better argument he began
to adapt a speech that he had heard spoken a few weeks earlier in a
melodrama at the Aldwich. The hero, a soldier, had come home from the
war to find his betrothed in the arms of another, and she had protested
that it was him alone she loved, and that she was playing with the
other; but the returned warrior had delivered himself of an oration
on the eternal sanctity of love. "Love cannot be divided like a worm
and continue to exist. It is not a game." There was something in that
argument, and Mr Whately decided to tell Roland that love came only once
in a man's life, and that he must reserve himself for that one occasion.
"If you make love to every girl you meet, you will spoil yourself for
the real love affair. It will be the removal of a shovelful of gravel
from a large pile. One shovelful appears to make no difference, but
in the end the pile of gravel disappears." That is what he would say
to Roland. And because the idea seemed suitable, he did not pause to
consider whether or not it was founded upon truth. He lay back in his
corner seat and began to arrange his ideas according to that line of
persuasion.
But all this fine flow of wit and logic was dispelled when the train
drew up at Fernhurst station and Mr Whately descended from the carriage
to find Roland waiting for him on the platform.
"Hullo! father," he said, and the two of them walked in silence out of
the station, and turned into the Eversham Rooms.
"I've booked a table at the hotel," said Roland.
"Good."
"I expect you're feeling a bit hungry after your journey, aren't you,
father?"
"Yes, I am a bit."
"Not a bad day for travelling, though?"
"No, it was very jolly. The country was beautiful all the way down. It's
such a relief to be able to get out of London for a bit."
"I expect it must be."
"It's quite a treat to be able to come here"; and so nervous was he that
he failed to appreciate the irony of his last statement.
By this time they had reached the hotel. Roland walked with a cheerful
confidence into the entrance, nodded to the porter, hung his straw hat
upon the rack, and suggested a wash.
Mr Whately looked at himself in the glass as he dried his hands. It
was a withered face that looked back at him; the face of a bank clerk
who had risen with some industry and much privation to a position of
authority; a face that was lined and marked and undistinguished; the
face of a man who had never asserted himself. Mr Whately turned from
his own reflection and looked at his son, so strong, and fresh and
eager; unmarked as yet by trouble and adversity. Who was he, a scrubby,
middle-aged little man, emptied of energy and faith, with his life
behind him--who was he to impose his will on anyone?
"Finished, father?"
He followed his son into the dining-room and picked up the menu; but
he did not know what to choose, and handed the card across to Roland.
Roland ordered the meal; the waiter rubbed his hands, and father and son
sat opposite each other, oppressed by a situation that was new to them.
Roland waited for his father to begin. During the last thirty-six hours
he had been interviewed by three different masters, all of whom had, in
their way, tried to impress upon him the enormity of his offence. He was
by now a little tired of the subject. He wanted to know what punishment
had been fixed for him. He had heard enough of the moral aspect of the
case. "These people treat me as though I were a fool," he had said to
Brewster. "To hear the way they talked one would imagine that I had
never thought about the damnable business at all. They seem to expect me
to fall down, like St Paul before Damascus, and exclaim: 'Now, all is
clear to me!' But, damn it all, I knew what I was doing. I'd thought it
all out. I'm not going to do the conversion stunt just because I've been
found out." He expected his father to go over the old ground--influence,
position, responsibility. He prepared himself to listen. But as his
father did not begin, and as the soup did not arrive, Roland felt it was
incumbent upon him to say something.
"A great game that against Yorkshire?" he said.
"What! Which game?"
"Don't you remember, about a fortnight ago, the Middlesex and Yorkshire
match? Middlesex had over two hundred to get and only three hours to get
them in. They're a fine side this year."
And within two minutes they were discussing cricket as they had
discussed it so often before. At first they talked to cover their
embarrassment, but soon they had become really interested in the
subject.
"And what chance do you think you have of getting in the XI.? Surely
they ought to give you a trial soon."
"Oh, I don't know, father; I'm not much class, and there are several
old colours. I ought to get my seconds all right, and next season...."
He stopped, realising suddenly that he did not as yet know whether there
would be any next season for him, and quickly changed the conversation,
telling his father of a splendid rag that the Lower Fourth had organised
for the last Saturday of the term.
Sooner or later the all-important question had to be tackled, but by
the time lunch had finished, son and father had established their old
intimacy of quiet conversation, and they were ready to face and, if
need be, to dismiss the violent intrusion of the trouble. They walked
up and down the hotel grounds, Mr Whately wondering at what exact point
he should dab in his carefully constructed argument. There was a pause,
into which his voice broke suddenly:
"You know, Roland, about this business...."
"Yes, father."
"Well, I mean, going out with a girl in the town. Do you think it's...."
He paused. After all, he did not know what to say.
"I know, father. I know." And looking at each other they realised that
it would be impossible for them to discuss it. Their relationship was at
stake. It had no technique to deal with the situation. And Roland asked,
as his mother had asked, "What's going to happen, father?"
For answer, Mr Whately put his hand into his pocket, took out the
headmaster's letter and gave it to Roland. Roland read it through and
then handed it back. "Not a bad fellow, the Chief," he said, and they
walked up and down the path in silence.
"It's a disappointment," said Roland.
"For all of us."
"I suppose so."
And after another pause: "What's going to happen to me at the end of the
term?"
"That's what I've got to decide. I suggested a bank, but your mother was
very much against it."
"Oh, not the bank, father!"
"Well, I'll do my best for you, but it'll be difficult. Oxford's out of
the question. You can see that, can't you? I should have to send you to
a crammer, and everyone would talk. It would be sure to leak out. And we
don't want anything like that to happen, because they would be sure to
think it was something worse than it really was. I'm afraid Oxford's got
to go. Your mother agreed with me about that."
"I'm sure you're right, father."
"But I don't know what else there is, Roland. I shall have to ask the
headmaster."
But the headmaster was not very helpful. He was kind and sympathetic.
He spoke of the moral significance of the situation and the eventual
service that this trouble might prove to have been. He wished Roland
the very best of luck. He didn't agree with Mr Whately about the
impossibility of Oxford, but he appreciated Mr Whately's point of view.
After all, Mr Whately knew his own son better than he did. Was there
anything more Mr Whately would wish to ask him? He would be always very
glad to give Mr Whately any advice or help that lay within him. He hoped
Mr Whately would have a pleasant journey back to town.
"Dorset's at its best in June," he said, as he escorted Mr Whately to
the door.
There was an hour to put in before the departure of the London train,
and Roland and his father walked down to the cricket field. They sat on
the grass in the shade of the trees that cluster round the pavilion, and
watched the lazy progress of the various games that were scattered round
the large high-walled ground. It was a pretty sight--the green fields,
the white flannels, the mild sunshine of early summer. It was bitter to
Mr Whately that he would never again see Fernhurst. For that was what
Roland's trouble meant to him. And the reflection saddened his last hour
with his son.
When Roland had left him at the station he walked up and down the
platform in the grip of a deep melancholy. On such an afternoon, five
years ago, he had seen Fernhurst for the first time. He had brought
Roland down to try for a scholarship and they had stayed for three days
together at the Eversham Hotel. Fernhurst had been full of promise for
them then. He had not been to a public school himself. When he was a boy
the public school system had indeed hardly begun to impose its autocracy
on the lower middle classes, and he had always felt himself at a
disadvantage because he had been educated at Burstock Grammar School. He
had been desperately anxious for Roland to make a success of Fernhurst.
He had looked forward to the day when his son would be an important
figure in the school, and when he himself would become important as
Whately's father. How proud he would feel when he would walk down to the
field in the company of a double first. He would come down to "commem"
and give a luncheon party at the Eversham Hotel, and the masters would
come and speak to him and congratulate him on his son's performance:
"A wonderful game of his last week against Tonwich." And during the
last eighteen months it had indeed seemed that these dreams were to be
realised. Roland had his colours at football, he was in the Sixth, a
certainty for his seconds at cricket: after the summer he would be a
prefect and captain of games in the house. And now it was all over. As
far as he was concerned, Fernhurst was finished. His life would be empty
now without the letter every Monday morning telling of Roland's place
in form, of his scores during the week, and all the latest news of a
vivid communal life. That was over. And as Mr Whately mounted the train,
closed the door and sat back against the carriage, he felt as though he
were undergoing an operation; a part of his being was being wrenched
from him.
Roland felt none of this despondency. After saying good-bye to his
father he walked gaily up the Eversham Road. The brown stone of the
Abbey tower was turning to gold in the late sunlight, a cool wind was
blowing, the sky was blue. What did this trouble matter to him? Had he
not strength and faith and time in plenty to repair it? He had wearied
of school, he reminded himself. He had felt caged this last year; he had
wanted freedom; he had outgrown the narrow discipline of the field and
classroom. Next term he would be a man and not a schoolboy. He flung
back his shoulders as though he were ridding them of a burden.
There was still three-quarters of an hour to put in before lock-up, and
he walked up past the big school towards the hill. He thought he would
like to tell Brewster what had happened. He found him in his study, and
with him an old boy, Gerald Marston, who had been playing against the
school that afternoon.
"Hullo!" he said. "So here's the criminal. I've just been hearing all
about you. Come along and sit down."
Roland was flattered at Marston's interest in his escapade. He had
hardly known him at all when he had been at Fernhurst. Marston had been
in another house, was two years his senior, and, in addition, a double
first. Probably it was the first time they had even spoken to each
other.
"Oh, yes, we've been having an exciting time," laughed Roland.
"And what's going to be the end of it?"
"Well, as far as I can gather, the school will meet without me next
September."
"The sack?"
"Well, hardly that; the embroidered bag."
They talked and laughed. Marston was very jolly; he gave himself no
airs, and Roland could hardly realise that three years ago he had been
frightened of him, that when Marston had passed him in the cloister he
had lowered his voice, and as often as not had stopped speaking till he
had gone by.
"And what's going to happen to you now?" asked Marston.
"That's just what I don't know. My pater talked about my going into a
bank."
"But you'd hate that, wouldn't you?"
"I'm not too keen on it."
"Lord, no! I should think not. And there's no real future in it. You
ought to go into the City. There's excitement there, and big business.
You don't want to waste your life like that."
It happens sometimes that we meet a person whom we seem to have known
all our life, and by the time the clock began to strike the quarter,
Roland felt that he and Marston were old friends.
"A good fellow that," said Marston, after he had gone, "and a bit of a
sport too, by all accounts. I must try and see more of him."
And in his study Roland had picked up a calendar and was counting the
days that lay between him and Freedom.
PART II
THE RIVAL FORCES
CHAPTER VIII
A FORTUNATE MEETING
Mr Whately's one idea on his return to Hammerton was to hide the fact
that Roland's sudden leaving was the result of a scandal. He wished the
decision in no way to seem unpremeditated. Two days later, therefore, he
went round to the Curtises' and prepared the way by a discussion of the
value of university training.
"Really, you know, Mrs Curtis," he said, "I very much doubt whether
Oxford is as useful as we sometimes think it is. What will Roland be
able to do afterwards? If I know Roland he will do precious little
work. He is not very clever; I doubt if he will get into the Civil
Service, and what else is there open to him? Nothing, perhaps, except
schoolmastering, and he would not be much use at that. I am not at all
certain that it is not wiser, on the whole, to take a boy away at about
seventeen or eighteen, send him abroad for a couple of months and then
put him into business."
Mrs Curtis was not a little surprised. For a good sixteen years Mr
Whately had refused to consider the possibility of any education for
Roland other than Fernhurst and Brasenose.
"But you are not thinking of taking him away from Fernhurst and not
sending him to Brasenose?" she said.
"Oh, no, Mrs Curtis, but I have been thinking that if we could do things
all over again I am not at all sure but that's not the way I should have
arranged his education."
That was the first step.
A few nights later he came round again, and again talked of the value of
two or three months in France.
"What does Roland think about it, Mr Whately?" she asked.
"As a matter of fact, I only heard from Roland on the subject to-day;
he seems quite keen on it. I just threw it out as a suggestion to him.
I pointed out that most of his friends will have left at the end of the
term, that next year he would be rather lonely, and that there would not
be anything very much for him to do when he came down from Oxford. He
seemed to agree with me."
Mrs Curtis, however, was no fool. She had spent the greater part of her
middle age sitting in front of a fire watching life drift past her, and
her one amusement had been the examination of the motives and actions of
her friends.
"There is something rather curious here," she said that evening to her
husband. "As long as we have known the Whatelys they have insisted
on the value of public school and university education. Now, quite
suddenly, they have turned round, and they are talking about business
and commerce and the value of French."
Mr Curtis, who was a credulous creature, saw no reason why they should
not change their minds if they wanted to.
"After all," he said, "it is quite true that Latin and Greek are of very
little use to anyone in the City."
But Mrs Curtis refused to be convinced.
"I do not care what you say," she said. "You just wait and see."
And, sure enough, within a week Mr Whately had confessed his intention
of taking Roland away from Fernhurst at the end of the term.
"And you are going to send him to France?" said Mrs Curtis.
"I am not quite certain about that," he said. "I am going to look round
first to see if I can't get him a job at once. We both agree that
another year at Fernhurst would be a waste of time."
Mrs Curtis smiled pleasantly. As soon as he had gone she expressed
herself forcibly.
"I do not believe for a moment," she insisted, "that Mr Whately has
changed his mind without some pretty strong reason. He was frightfully
anxious to see Roland captain of his house. He was so proud of
everything he did at Fernhurst. There must be a row or something;
unless, of course, he has lost his money."
But that idea Mr Curtis pooh-poohed.
"My dear Edith," he said, "that is quite impossible. You know that
Whately's got a good salaried post in the bank. He has got no private
means to lose and he is not the sort of man to live above his income. It
is certainly not money. I don't see why a man should not change his mind
if he wants to."
Mrs Curtis again refused to be convinced.
"You wouldn't," she said.
April was of the same opinion. She knew perfectly well that Roland, of
his own free will, would never have agreed to such a plan. There must be
trouble of some sort or other, she said to herself, and Roland instantly
became more interesting in her eyes. She wondered what he had done. Her
knowledge of school life was based mainly upon the stories of Talbot
Baines Reid, and she began to picture some adventure in which he had
taken the blame upon his own shoulders. A friend of his had contracted
liabilities at the Eversham Arms and Roland had become involved; or
perhaps someone had endeavoured to steal the papers of a Scholarship
examination and Roland had been falsely accused. She could not imagine
that Roland had himself done anything dishonourable, and she could not
be expected to know the usual cause for which boys are suddenly removed
from their school. Ralph Richmond was the only person who was likely to
know the true story, and to him she went.
Now, there is in the Latin Grammar a morality contained in an example of
a conditional sentence which runs in the following words:--"Even though
they are silent they say enough." In spite of Ralph's desperate efforts
to assume ignorance it was quite obvious to April that he knew all about
it, also that it was something that Roland would not want her to know.
She was puzzled and distressed. If there had been no embarrassment
between them during the holidays she would probably have written to
Roland and asked him about it, but under the conditions she felt that
this was impossible.
"I shall have to wait till he returns," she said. "Perhaps he will tell
me of his own accord."
But when Roland came home he showed not the slightest inclination
to tell her anything. If he were acting a part he was acting it
extraordinarily well. He told her how glad he was that he was leaving
Fernhurst. "One outgrows school," he said. "It is all right for a bit.
It is great fun when you are a fag and when you are half-way up; but it
is not worth it when you have got responsibilities. And as I went there
at thirteen--a year earlier than most people--nearly all my friends will
have left. I should have been very lonely next term. I think I am well
out of it."
April reminded him of his eagerness to go to Oxford. That objection,
too, he managed to brush aside.
"Oxford," he said; "that is nothing but school over again. It is masters
and work and regulations. I am very glad it is over."
For a while she was almost tempted to believe he was telling her
the truth, but as August passed she noticed that Roland seemed less
satisfied with his prospects. He spoke with diminishing enthusiasm of
the freedom of an office. Indeed, whenever she introduced the subject he
changed it quickly.
"I expect father will find me something decent soon," he would say, and
began to talk of cricket or of some rag that he remembered.
But Mr Whately was not finding it easy to procure a post for his son.
Roland, after all, possessed no special qualifications. He had been in
the Sixth Form of a public school, but he had not been a particularly
brilliant member of it. He had passed no standard examinations. He was
too young for any important competitive work and Mr Whately had very few
influential friends. Roland began to see before him the prospect of long
days spent in a bank--a dismal prospect. "What will it lead to, father?"
he used to ask, and Mr Whately had not been able to hold out very much
encouragement.
"Well, I suppose in time if you work well you would become a manager.
If you do anything brilliant you might be given some post of central
organisation."
"But it is not very likely, is it, father?" said Roland.
"Not very likely; no."
The years seemed mapped out before him and he found it difficult to
maintain his pose of complacent satisfaction, so that one evening, when
he felt more than ordinarily depressed, and when the need of sympathy
became irresistible, he found himself telling April the story of his
trouble.
She listened to him quietly, sitting huddled up in the window-seat, her
knees drawn up towards her, her hands clasped beneath them. She said
nothing for a while after he had finished.
"Well," he said at last, "that's the story. You know all about it now."
She looked up at him. There was in her eyes neither annoyance nor
repulsion nor contempt, but only interest and sympathy.
"Why did you do it, Roland?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said. And because this happened to be the real
reason, and because he felt it to be inadequate, he searched his memory
for some more plausible account.
"I don't know," he said. "It seemed to happen this way. Things were
awfully dull at school, and then, during the Christmas holidays, we had
that row. If it hadn't been for that I think I should have chucked it up
altogether. But you didn't seem to care for me; it didn't seem to matter
much either way; and--well one drifts into these things."
There was another pause.
"But I don't understand, Roland. Do you mean to say if we hadn't had
that row at Christmas nothing of this would have happened?"
Because their disagreement had not been without its influence on
Roland's general attitude towards his school romance, and because
Roland was always at the mercy of the immediate influence, and in the
presence of April was unable to think that anything but April could have
influenced him, he mistook the part for the whole, and assured her that
if they had not had that quarrel at the dance he would have given up
Dolly altogether. And because the situation was one they had often met
in plays and stories they accepted it as the truth.
"It's all my fault," she said, "really all my fault." And turning her
head away from him she allowed her thoughts to travel back to that
ineffectual hour of loneliness and resignation. "I can do nothing,
nothing myself," she said. "I can only spoil things for other people."
At the time Roland was disappointed, but two hours later he decided that
he was, on the whole, relieved that Mrs Curtis should have chosen that
particular moment to return from her afternoon call. In another moment
he would have been saying things that would have complicated life most
confoundedly. April had been very near to tears; he disliked heroics.
He would have had to do something to console her. He would probably
have said to her a great many things that at the time would have seemed
to him true, but which afterwards he would have regretted. He had
sufficient worries of his own already.
At home life was not made easy for Roland. He received little sympathy.
Ralph told him that he deserved all he had got and had been lucky to get
off so cheaply. His father repeated a number of moral platitudes, the
source of which Roland was able to recognise.
"After all," said Mr Whately, "I have been in a bank all my life; I have
not done badly in it, and you, with your education and advantages,
should be able to do much better."
This was a line of argument which did not appeal to Roland. He was very
fond of his father, but he had always regarded his manner of life as a
fate, at all costs, to be avoided. And though his mother in his presence
endeavoured to make him believe that all was for the best in the best of
all possible worlds, when she was alone with her husband she saw only
her son's point of view.
"If this is all we have got to offer him," she said, "all the money
and time we have spent will be wasted. If a desk at a bank is going to
be the end of it, he might just as well have gone to a day school, and
all the extra money we have spent could have been put away for him in a
bank."
Mr Whately reminded her that the change in their plans was due entirely
to Roland.
"Oh, yes, yes, yes," she said, "that is all very well. But it is a cruel
shame that a boy's whole life should depend on a thing he does when he
is seventeen years old."
Mr Whately murmured something about it being the way of the world,
adding he himself had been in a bank now for thirty years.
"Which is the very reason," said Mrs Whately, "that I don't want my son
to go into one"--an argument that did not touch her husband.
But talk how they might, and whatever philosophic attitude they might
adopt, the practical position remained unchanged. Roland had been
offered a post in a bank, which he could take up at the beginning
of October. Three weeks were left him in which he might try to find
something better for himself; but of this there seemed little prospect.
And as he sat in the free seats at the Oval, on an afternoon of late
September, Roland had to face his position honestly, and own to himself
there was no alternative to the bank.
He was lonely as he sat there in the mild sunshine watching the white
figures move across the grass. That evening school would be going back
and he would not be with them. It was hard to realise that in four
hours' time the cloisters would be alive with voices, that feet would
be clattering up and down the study steps, that the eight-fifteen would
have just arrived and the rush to the hall would have begun.
The play became slow; two professionals were wearing down the bowling.
He began to feel sleepy in the languid atmosphere of this late summer
afternoon. He could not concentrate his attention upon the cricket. He
could think only of himself, and the river that was bearing him without
his knowledge to a country he did not know.
It was not merely that he had left school, that he had exchanged one
discipline for another; he had altered entirely his mode of life,
and for this new life a new technique would be required. Up till now
everything had been marked out clearly in definite stages; he had
been working in definite lines. It was not merely that the year was
divided into terms, but his career also was so divided. There had been
a gradation in everything. It had been his ambition to get his firsts
at football, and the path was marked out clearly for him--house cap.,
seconds, firsts: in form he had wanted to get into the Sixth, and here
again the course had been clear--Fourth, Fifth, Sixth: he had wanted
to become a house prefect; the process was the same--day room table,
Lower Fourth table, Fifth Form table, Sixth Form table. He had known
exactly what he was doing; everything had been made simple for him. His
ambitions had been protected. It was quite different now: nothing was
clearly defined. He would have to spend a certain number of hours a day
in an office. Outside of that office he would be free to do what he
liked. He could choose his own ambition, but as yet he could not decide
what that would be. He was as dazed by the imminence of this freedom
as a mortal man whose World is ordered by the limits of time and space
when confronted suddenly with the problem of infinity. Roland could
not come to terms with a world in which he would not be tethered to one
spot by periods of three months. His reverie was interrupted by a hand
that descended heavily on his shoulder and a voice he recognised, that
addressed him by his name. He turned and saw Gerald Marston standing
behind him.
"So you are a free man at last," he said. "How did the rest of the term
go?"
It was a pleasant surprise; and Roland welcomed the prospect of a cheery
afternoon with a companion who would soon dispel his melancholy.
"Oh, not so badly," he said. "I lay pretty quiet and saw as little of
Carus Evans as I could."
"And how is the amiable Brewster?" asked Marston.
"He's all right, I suppose. He won't have much of a time this year,
though, I should think. He ought to have been captain of the XI.,
but they say now he is not responsible enough, and Jenkins, a man he
absolutely hates, is going to run it instead."
"So you're not sorry you have left?"
Roland shrugged his shoulders.
"In a way not; if there hadn't been a row, though, I should have had a
pretty good time this term."
"Well, you can't have things both ways. What's going to happen to you
now?"
With most people Roland would have preferred to pass the matter off with
some casual remark about his father having got him a good job in the
City. He liked sympathy, but was afraid of sympathy when it became pity.
He did not want the acquaintances who, six months ago, had been talking
of him as "that lucky little beast, Whately," to speak of him now as
"poor old Whately; rotten luck on him; have you heard about it?" But it
is always easier to make a confession to a stranger than to a person
with whom one is brought into daily contact. Marston was a person with
whom he felt intimate although he knew him so little; and so he found
himself telling Marston about the bank and of the dismal future that
awaited him.
Marston was highly indignant.
"What a beastly shame," he said. "You will simply hate it. Cannot your
father get you something better?"
"I don't think so. He has always lived a very quiet life; he has not got
any influential friends--but really, what's the good of talking about
it? Something may turn up. Let's watch the cricket."
"Oh, rot, man!" expostulated Marston. "You can't let the thing drop like
this. After all, my father is rather a big pot in the varnish world; he
may be able to do something."
"But I don't know anything about varnish."
"You don't need to, my dear fellow. The less you know about it the
better. All you've got to do is to believe that our kind of varnish is
the best." And as they walked round the ground during the tea interval a
happy idea occurred to Marston.
"I've got it," he said. "We have got a cricket match on Saturday against
the village; we're quite likely to be a man short; at any rate we can
always play twelve-a-side. You come down and stay the week-end with us.
The pater's frightfully keen on cricket. If you can manage to make a few
he's sure to be impressed, and then I'll tell him all about you. You
will get a pleasant week-end and I expect quite a good game of cricket."
Roland naturally accepted this proposal eagerly. He did not, however,
tell his people of the prospect of a job in Marston & Marston, Limited;
he preferred to wait till things were settled one way or another. If he
were to be disappointed, he would prefer to be disappointed alone. He
did not need any sympathy at such a time.
But when he went round to the Curtises' April could tell, from the glow
in his face, that he was unusually excited about something. She did
not have a chance to speak to him when he was in the drawing-room. Her
mother talked and talked. Arthur had just gone back to school and she
was garrulous about his outfit.
"It is so absurd, you know, Mr Whately," she said, "the way people
say women care more about clothes than men. There is Arthur to-day;
he insisted on having linen shirts instead of woollen ones, although
woollen shirts are much nicer and much warmer. 'My dear Arthur,' I said,
'no one can see your shirt; your waistcoat hides most of it and your
tie the rest.' But he said that all the boys wore linen shirts instead
of flannel. 'But, my dear Arthur,' I said, 'who is going to see what
kind of a shirt you are wearing if it is covered by your waistcoat and
tie? And I can cut your sleeves shorter so that they would not be seen
beneath your coat.' And do you know what he said, Mr Whately? He said,
'You don't understand, mother; the boys would see that I was wearing a
flannel shirt when I changed for football, and I would be ragged for
it.' Well, now, Mr Whately, isn't that absurd?"
She went on talking and talking about every garment she had bought for
her son--his ties, his boots, his socks, his coat.
Roland hardly talked at all. His father mentioned that he was going down
for the week-end to stay with some friends and take part in a cricket
match.
"So that is what you are so excited about!" April had interposed. And
Roland had laughed and said that that was it.
But she would not believe that he could be so excited about a game of
cricket, and in the hall she had pulled him by his coat sleeve.
"What is it?" she had whispered. "Something has happened. It is not only
a cricket match."
And because he wanted to share his enthusiasm with someone, and because
April looked so pretty, and because he felt that courage would flow to
him from her faith in him, he confided in her his hope.
"Oh, that would be lovely," she said. "I do hope things will turn out
all right. I've felt so guilty all along about it; if it hadn't been for
me none of this would ever have happened."
"Don't worry about that," said Roland. "Things are beginning to turn
right now."
There was no time for further conversation; Mrs Curtis had completed her
doorstep homily to Mr Whately. April pressed Roland's hand eagerly as
she said good-bye to him.
"Good luck!" she whispered.
CHAPTER IX
HOGSTEAD
It was a glorious week, and through Thursday and Friday Roland watched
in nervous anticipation every cloud that crossed the pale blue sky.
Sooner or later the weather must break, he felt; and it would be
fatal for his prospects if it rained now. It is miserable to sit in a
pavilion and watch the wicket slowly become a bog: cheeriness under
such conditions is anti-social. Mr Marston would be unable to work up
any sympathy for him, and would remember him as "that fellow who came
down for the cricket match that was such a fiasco"--an unfortunate
association.
Everything went well, however. Roland travelled down on the Friday
night, and as he got out of the train at Hogstead station he saw the
spire of the church black against a green and scarlet sky. "With such a
sky it can hardly be wet to-morrow," he said.
The Marstons were a rich family and it was the first time Roland had
seen anything of the life of really wealthy people. He was met at the
station and was driven up through a long, curving drive to a Georgian
house surrounded by well-kept lawns. Marston received him in a large,
oak-panelled hall, and although at first Roland was a little embarrassed
by the attentions of the footman, who took his hat and coat and bag,
within five minutes he found himself completely at his ease, sitting in
a deep arm-chair discussing with Mr Marston the prospects of a certain
young cricketer who had made his first appearance that summer at the
Oval.
Mr Marston was a fine healthy man, in the autumn of life. The enthusiasm
of his early years had been spent in a bitter struggle to build up his
business and he had had very little time for amusement. During the long
hours at his desk and the long evenings with ledgers and account-books
piled before him he had looked forward to the days when he would be able
to delegate his authority and spend most of his time in the country,
within the sound of bat and ball. Having had little coaching he was
himself a poor performer; for which reason he was the more kindly
disposed to anyone who showed promise. It was a rule of his estate that,
winter as well as summer, every gardener, groom and servant should spend
ten minutes each morning bowling at the nets. He lived in the hope that
one day an under-gardener would be deemed worthy of transportation to
the county ground.
"My son tells me you are a great performer," he said to Roland.
"Oh, no, sir; only very moderate. I did not get into the first XI. at
Fernhurst."
"They had an awfully strong XI.," interposed Marston. "And he had a
blooming good average for the second. Didn't you make a century against
the town?"
Roland confessed that he had, but remarked that with such bowling it was
very hard to do anything else.
"Well, ten other people managed to," said Marston.
"And a century is a century whoever makes it," said his father, who had
never made as many as fifty in his life. "You've got to make a lot of
good shots to make a hundred."
"At any rate," said Marston, "I don't mind betting he gets a few
to-morrow."
And for half-an-hour they exchanged memories of the greatest of all
games.
Roland found his evening clothes neatly laid out on his bed when he went
up to change for dinner; and when he came down the whole family was
assembled in the drawing-room. There were Mrs Marston, a large rather
plump woman of about fifty years old; her daughter Muriel, a small and
pretty girl, with her light hair scattered over her shoulders; and two
or three other members of the next day's side. There was an intimate
atmosphere of comfort and well-being to which Roland was unaccustomed.
At home they had only one servant, and had to wait a good deal upon
themselves. He enjoyed the silent, unobtrusive methods of the two men
who waited on them. He never needed to ask for anything; as soon as
he had finished his bread another piece was offered him; his glass
was filled as it began to empty; and the conversation was like the
meal--calm, leisured, polished.
Roland sat next to Muriel and found her a delightful companion. She was
at an age when school and games filled her life completely. She told
Roland of a rag that they had perpetrated on their French mistress,
and he recounted her the exploits of one Foster, who used to dress up
at night, go down to the Eversham Arms, sing songs and afterwards pass
round the hat.
Roland had his doubts as to the existence of Foster; he had become
at Fernhurst one of those mythical creatures which every school
possesses--a fellow who took part in one or two amusing escapades, and
around whose name had accumulated the legends of many generations. His
story was worth telling, none the less.
After dinner they walked out into the garden, with the chill of the
autumn night in the air. It reminded Roland that his sojourn in that
warmly coloured life was only temporary, and that outside it was the
cold, cheerless struggle for existence.
"It is so ripping this," he said to Muriel, "and it is so rotten to
think that in a few weeks I shall be sitting down in front of a desk and
adding up figures." He told her, though she was already acquainted with
the facts, of how he had left Fernhurst at the end of the term, and in a
few weeks would be going into a bank.
"Oh, how beastly," she said. "I suppose you will have rotten short
holidays?"
"A fortnight a year."
"I think it is a shame," she said. "I am sure a boy like you ought to be
leading an open-air life somewhere."
And that night, before he fell asleep, Roland thought wistfully of
the company he had met that day. It was marvellous how money smoothed
everything. It was the oil that made the cogs in the social machine
revolve; without it there was no rhythm or harmony, but only a broken,
jarring movement. Without money he felt life must be always in a degree
squalid. He remembered his own home and the numerous worries about small
accounts and small expenses; he knew how it had worn down the energy
of his father. He knew that such worries would never touch a girl like
Muriel. How easy and good-natured all these people were; they were
flowers that had been grown in a fertile soil. Everything depended upon
the soil in which one was planted; the finest plants would wither if
they grew far from the sunshine in a damp corner of a field.
Next day Roland awoke to a world heavy with a dripping golden mist,
that heralded a bright hot day. There had been a heavy dew, and after
breakfast they all walked down to the ground to look at the wicket.
"If we win the toss to-day, Gerald," said Mr Marston to his son, "I
think we had better put them in first. It is bound to play a bit
trickily for the first hour or so."
There was no need for such subtlety, however, for the village won the
toss, and, as is the way with villagers, decided to go in first.
"Good," said Mr Marston, "and if we have not got eight of them out by
lunch I shall be very surprised."
And, sure enough, eight of the village were out by lunch, but the score
had reached one hundred and five. This was largely due to three erratic
overs that had been sent down by an ecclesiastical student from Wells
who had bowled, perhaps in earnest of future compromise, on the leg
theory, with his field placed upon the off.
The local butcher had collected some thirty runs off these three overs,
and thirty runs in a village match when the whole score of a side does
not usually reach more than fifty or sixty is a serious consideration.
At lunch-time Mr Marston was most apologetic. "I had heard he was a good
bowler," he said to Roland, "and I thought it would be a good thing to
give him a chance to bowl early on; and then when I saw him getting hit
all over the place I imagined he was probably angling for a catch or
something; and then after he had been hit about in the first two overs I
had to give him a third for luck."
"An expensive courtesy," said Roland.
"Perhaps it was; but, after all, a hundred and five is not a great deal,
and we have a good many bats on our side."
Within half-an-hour's time a hundred and five for eight had become
a hundred and fifty. Under the kindly influence of his excellent
champagne-cup Mr Marston had decided to give the ecclesiastical student
another opportunity of justifying his reputation. He did not redeem that
reputation. He sent down two overs, which resulted--in addition to three
wides and a "no ball"--in twenty-five runs; and a hundred and fifty
would take a lot of getting. Indeed, Mr Marston's XI. never looked at
all like getting them.
Roland, who was sent in first, was caught at short leg in the second
over; it was off a bad ball and a worse stroke--a slow, long hop that he
hit right across, and skied. He was bitterly disappointed. He did not
mind making ducks; it was all in the run of a game, and he never minded
if he was got out by a good ball. But it was hard on such a day to throw
away one's wicket.
"Very bad luck indeed," said Muriel, as he reached the pavilion.
"Not bad luck, bad play!" he remarked good-humouredly. Having taken
off his pads he sat down beside her and watched the game. It was not
particularly exciting; wickets fell with great regularity. Mr Marston
made a few big hits, and his son stayed in for a little while without
doing anything much more than keep his end up. In the end the total
reached a hundred and thirteen, and in a one-day match a first innings
result was usually final. But Mr Marston was not at all despondent. He
refused to wait for the tea interval and led his side straight on to
the field.
"We don't want any rest," he said. "Most of us have rested the whole
afternoon, and those of the other side who are not batting can have
tea."
It was now four-thirty; two hours remained before the drawing of stumps,
and from now on the game became really exciting. Marston took two
wickets in his first over, and at the other end a man was run out. Three
wickets were down for two runs: a panic descended upon the villagers.
The cobbler was sent in to join the doctor, with strict instructions
not to hit on any account. The cobbler was not used to passive
resistance; he played carefully for a couple of overs, then a faster
ball from Marston found the edge of the bat. Short slip was for him,
providentially, asleep, and the umpire signalled a four. This seemed to
throw him off his balance.
"It is no good," he said. "If I start mucking about like that I don't
stand the foggiest chance of sticking in. I'm going to have a hit."
At the next ball he did have a hit--right across it, and his middle
stump fell flat.
After this there was no serious attempt to wear down the bowling.
Rustic performers--each with a style more curious than the last--drove
length balls on the off stump in the direction of long on. Wickets
fell quickly. The score rose; and by the time the innings was over
only an hour was left for play, and ninety-two runs were required to
win--ninety-two runs against time in a fading light, on a wicket that
had been torn up by hob-nailed boots, was not the easiest of tasks.
"Still, we must have a shot for it," Mr Marston said. "We cannot be more
than beaten, and we are that already."
And so Gerald Marston and Roland went in to open the innings with the
firm intention of getting on or getting out.
The start was sensational. Marston had few pretensions to style; and
indeed his unorthodox, firm-footed drive had been the despair of the
Fernhurst Professional. The ball, when he hit it, went into the air far
more often than along the ground. And probably no one was more surprised
than he was when he hit the first two balls that he received right
along the ground to the boundary, past cover-point. The third ball was
well up: he took a terrific drive at it, missed it, and was very nearly
bowled. Roland, who was backing up closely, called him for a run, and if
surprise at so unparalleled an example of impertinence had not rendered
the wicket-keeper impotent, nothing could have saved him from being
run out. A fever entered into Roland's brain. He knew quite well that
he ought to play carefully for a few balls to get his eye in, but that
short run had flung him off his balance. The first ball he received he
hit at with a horizontal bat, and it sailed, fortunately for him, over
cover-point's head for two. He attempted a similar stroke at the next
ball, was less fortunate, and saw cover-point prepare himself for an
apparently easy catch. But there is a kindly Providence which guards the
reckless.
Cover-point was the doctor, and probably the safest man in the whole
field to whom to send a catch. He was not, however, proof against the
impetuous ardour of mid-off. Mid-off saw the ball in the air and saw
nothing else. He rushed to where it was about to fall. He arrived at the
spot just when the doctor's hands were preparing a comfortable nest for
the ball, and the doctor and mid-off fell in a heap together, with the
ball beneath them!
Twelve runs had been scored in the first five balls; there had been
a possible run out; a catch had been missed at cover-point. It was a
worthy start to a great innings.
After that everything went right with Roland. He attempted and brought
off some remarkably audacious shots. He let fly at everything that was
at all pitched up to him. Sometimes he hit the ball in the centre of
the bat, and it sailed far into the long field; but even his mishits
were powerful enough to lift the ball out of reach of the instanding
fieldsman: and fortune was kind. By the time Marston was caught at
the wicket the score had reached fifty-seven, and there were still
twenty-five minutes left for play. At the present rate of scoring there
would be no difficulty in getting the runs. At this point, however, a
misfortune befell them.
In the first innings the ecclesiastical student had made a duck; he had
not, indeed, received a single ball. His predecessor had been bowled by
the last ball of an over, and off the first ball of the next over the
man at the other end had called him for an impossible run and he had
been run out. To recompense him for this ill luck Mr Marston had put him
in first wicket down. "After all," he had said, "we ought to let the man
have a show, and if he does make a duck it won't make any difference."
He was not prepared, however, for what did occur. The ecclesiastical
student was a left-handed batsman, and a sigh of relief seemed to go
up from the fielding side at the revelation. They were sportsmen; they
were prepared to run across in the middle of the over; but even so, the
preparation of a field for a left-hander was a lengthy business.
A grey gloom descended on the pavilion.
"Well, I declare!" said Mr Marston. "First of all he bowls on the leg
theory, with his field placed on the off, and then at a moment like this
he doesn't let us know that he's a left-hander!"
And the prospective divine appeared to be quite unconscious of the
situation. He had come out to enjoy himself; so far he had not enjoyed
himself greatly. He had taken no wickets, and had been responsible for
the loss of some fifty runs. This was his last chance, and he was not
going to hurry himself. He played his first three balls carefully, and
placed the last ball of the over in front of short leg for a single.
During the next four overs only eight runs were scored; four of these
were from carefully placed singles, off the fifth and sixth balls in the
over. Roland only had three balls altogether, and off one of these he
managed to get a square leg boundary.
The total had now reached sixty-five, twenty-eight runs were still
wanted, and only a quarter of an hour remained. Unless the left-hander
were got out at once there seemed to be no chance of winning; this fact
the village appreciated.
One would not say, of course, that the bowlers did not do their best to
dismiss the ecclesiastical student; they were conscientious men. But it
is very hard to bowl one's best if one knows that one's success will be
to the eventual disadvantage of one's side; a certain limpness is bound
to creep into the attack. And if Roland had received the balls that were
being sent down to his partner, there is little doubt that a couple of
overs would have seen the end of the match.
Roland realised that something desperate must be done. Either the
left-hander must get out, or he himself must get down to the other end;
and so off the first ball of the next over Roland backed up closely. He
was half-way down the pitch by the time the ball reached the batsman.
It was a straight half-volley, which was met with a motionless, if
perpendicular, bat. The ball trickled into the hands of mid-off.
"Come on!" yelled Roland.
It was an impossible run, and the left-hander stood, in startled dismay,
a few steps outside the crease.
"Run!" yelled Roland. His partner ran a few steps, saw the ball was
in the hands of mid-off, and prepared to walk back to the pavilion.
Mid-off, however, was in a highly electric state. He had already
imperilled severely the prospects of his side by colliding with
cover-point, and was resolved, at any rate, not to make a second
blunder. He had the ball in his hands. There was a chance of running a
batsman out; he must get the ball to the unprotected wicket as soon as
possible, and so, taking careful aim, he flung the ball at the wicket
with the greatest possible violence. It missed the wicket; and a student
of the score-book would infer that, after having played himself in
carefully and scoring four singles, F. R. Armitage opened his shoulders
in fine form. He might very well remain in this illusion, for there is
no further entry in the score-book against that gentleman's name. There
are just four singles and a five. He did not receive another ball.
Off the next four balls of the over Roland hit two fours and a two; off
the last ball he got another dangerously close single. Only ten more
runs were needed: there was now ample time in which to get them. Roland
got them indeed off the first four balls of the next over.
At the end of the match there was a scene of real enthusiasm, in which
Mr Armitage was the only person who took no part. He was still wondering
what had induced Roland to call him for those absurd singles. He indeed
took Mr Marston aside after dinner and pointed out to him that that
young man should really be given a few lessons in backing up.
"My dear sir," he said, "it was only the merest fluke that saved my
wicket--another inch and I should have been run out."
"Well, he managed to win the match for us," replied Mr Marston.
"Perhaps, perhaps, but he nearly ran me out."
Mr Armitage was, however, the only one of the party at all alarmed by
Roland's daring. That evening Roland was a small hero. Mr Marston could
find no words too good for him.
"A splendid fellow," he said to Gerald afterwards. "A really splendid
fellow--the sort of friend I have always wanted you to make--a
first-class, open, straight fellow."
Marston thought this a good opportunity to drop a hint about Roland's
position.
"Yes--a first-class fellow," he said. "Isn't it rotten to think a chap
like that will have to spend the whole of his life in a bank, with only
a fortnight's holiday a year, and no chance to develop his game!"
Mr Marston's rubicund face expressed appropriate disapproval.
"That fellow going to spend all his life in a bank? Preposterous! He
will be simply ruined there--a fellow who can play cricket like that!"
Mr Marston, having spent his own life at a desk, was anxious to save
anyone else from a similar fate, especially a cricketer.
"Well, it seems the only thing for him to do, father; his people haven't
got much money and have no influence. I know they have tried to get him
something better, but they haven't been able to."
"My dear Gerald, why didn't you tell me about it? If I had known a
fellow like that was being tied up in a bank I'd have tried to do
something to help him."
"Well, it's not too late now, is it?"
"No, but it's rather short notice, isn't it? What could he do?"
"Pretty well anything you could give him, father. He is jolly keen."
"Um!" said Mr Marston; and Gerald, who knew his father well, recognised
that he was about to immerse himself in deep thought, and that it would
be wiser to leave him alone.
By next morning the deep thought had crystallised into an idea.
"Look here, Gerald," said Mr Marston. "I don't know what this young man
is worth to me from a business point of view--probably precious little
at present. But he is a good fellow, the sort of young chap we really
want in the business. None of us are any younger than we were. As far
as I know, you are the only person under thirty in the whole show. Now,
what we do want badly just now are a few more foreign connections. We
have got the English market pretty well, but that is not enough. We want
the French and Belgian and German markets, and later on we shall want
the South American markets. Now, what I suggest is this: that when you
go out to France in November you should take young Whately with you,
show him round, and see what he is worth generally; and then we will
send him off on a tour of his own and see how many clients he brings us.
He is just the sort of fellow I want for that job. We don't want the
commercial traveller type at all; he is very good at small accounts, but
he does not do for the big financiers. I want a man who is good enough
to mix in society abroad--whom big men like Bertram can ask to their
houses. A man like that would always have a pull over a purely business
man. Now, if your young friend would care to have a shot at that, he
can; and if he makes good at it he will be making more at twenty-five
with us than he would be at a bank by the time he was fifty."
Marston carried the news at once to Roland.
"My lad," he said, "that innings of yours is about the most useful thing
that has ever happened to you in your life. The old man thinks so much
of you he is prepared to cut me out of his will almost; at any rate, as
far as I can make out, he is going to offer you a job in our business."
"What?"
"You will have to fix it up with him, of course, but he suggested to me
that you and I should go out together to France in November, and you
will be able to see the sort of way we do things, and then he will give
you a shot on your own as representative. If you do well at it--well, my
lad, you will be pretty well made for life!"
It was wonderful news for Roland. Life, at the very moment when it had
appeared to be closing in on him, had marvellously broadened out. He
returned home on the Monday morning, not only excited by the prospect of
a new and attractive job, but moved irresistibly by this sudden vision
of a world to which he was unaccustomed--by the charm, the elegance and
the direct good-naturedness of this family life.
CHAPTER X
YOUNG LOVE
Roland said nothing to his people of Mr Marston's conversation with
Gerald. He disliked scenes and an atmosphere of expectation. When
everything was settled finally he would tell them, but he would not risk
the exposure of his hope to the chill of disappointment. He could not,
however, resist the temptation to confide in April. She was young; she
could share his failures as his successes. Life was before them both.
No sooner had he turned the corner of the road than he saw the door of
the Curtises' house open. April was in the porch waiting for him. "She
must have been looking for me," he thought. "Sitting in the window-seat,
hoping that I should come." His pride as well as his affection was
touched by this clear proof of her interest in him.
"Well?" she said.
"I made a duck," he answered; and his vanity noted that her brown eyes
clouded suddenly with disappointment. "But that was only in the first
innings," he added.
"Oh, you pig!" she said, "and I thought that after all it had come to
nothing."
Roland laughed at the quick change to relief.
"But how do you know that I did do anything in the second innings?"
"You must have."
"But why?"
"'Cos--oh, I don't know. It's not fair to tease me, Roland; tell me what
happened." They had passed into the hall, shutting the door behind them,
and she pulled impatiently at his sleeve: "Come on, tell me."
"Well, as a matter of fact, I made forty-eight not out."
"Oh, how ripping, how ripping! Come and tell me all about it," and
catching him by the hand she led him to the window-seat, from which,
on that miserable afternoon, she had gazed for over an hour down the
darkening street. "Come on, tell me everything."
And though he at first endeavoured to assume an attitude of superior
indifference, he soon found himself telling the story of the match
eagerly, dramatically. Reticence was well enough in the presence of
the old and middle-aged--parents, relatives and schoolmasters--for all
those who had put behind them the thrill of wakening confidence and were
prepared to patronise it in others, from whose scrutiny the young had to
protect their emotions with the shield of "it is no matter." But April's
enthusiasm was fresh, unquestioning and freely given; he could not but
respond to it.
She listened to the story with alert, admiring eyes. "And were they
awfully pleased with you?" she said when he had finished.
"Well, it was pretty exciting."
"And did Mr Marston say anything to you?"
"Rather! Quite a lot. He was more excited than anyone."
"Oh, yes, but I didn't mean the cricket. Did he say anything about the
business?"
Roland nodded.
"Oh, but, Roland, what?"
"Well, I'm not quite certain what, but I think he's going to let me have
a shot at some sort of foreign representative affair."
"But, how splendid!" She felt that she shared, in a measure, in his
success. It was in her that he had confided his hopes; it was to her
that he had brought the news of his good fortune. Her face was flushed
and eager, its expression softened by her faith in him. And Roland who,
up till then, had regarded her as little more than a friend, her charm
as a delicate, elusive fragrance, was unprepared for this simple joy in
his achievement. The surprise placed in his mouth ardent, unconsidered
words.
"But I shouldn't have been able to do anything without you," he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked, feeling herself grow nervous, taut,
expectant.
"You encouraged me when I was depressed," he said. "You believed in
me. You told me that things would come right. And because of your
belief they have come right. If it hadn't been for you I shouldn't have
worried; I should have resigned myself to the bank. As likely as not I
shouldn't have gone down to the Marstons' at all. It's all you."
There was a pause. And when at last she spoke, the intonation of her
voice was tender.
"Is that true, Roland, really true?"
And as she looked at him, with her clear brown eyes, he believed
implicitly that it was true. He was not play-acting. His whole being
was softened and made tender by her beauty, by the sight of her calm,
oval face and quiet colour, her hair swept in a wide curve across her
forehead, gathered under the smooth skin of her neck. His manhood grew
strong through her belief in him. She was the key that would open for
him the gate of adventure. He leant forward, took her hands in his, and
the touch of her fingers brought to his lips an immediate avowal.
"It's quite true, April, every word of it. I shouldn't have done
anything but for you." Her brown eyes clouded with a mute gratitude.
Gently he drew her by the hand towards him, and she made no effort to
resist him. "April," he murmured, "April."
It was the first real kiss of his life. His mouth did not meet hers
as it had met Dolly's, in a hungry fierceness; he did not hold her in
his arms as he had held Dolly; did not press her to him till she was
forced, as Dolly had, to fling her head back and gasp for breath. For
an instant April's cheek was against his and his mouth touched hers:
nothing more. But in that cool contact of her lips he found for the
first time the romance, poetry, ecstasy, what you will, of love. And
when his arms released her and she leant back, her hand in his, a deep
tenderness remained with them. He said nothing. There was no need for
words. They sat silent in face of the mystery they had discovered.
Roland walked home in harmony with himself, with nature; one with
the rhythm of life that was made manifest in the changing seasons of
the year; the green leaf and the bud; the flower and the fruit; the
warm days of harvesting. Hammerton was stretched languid beneath the
September sunshine. The sky was blue, a pale blue, that whitened where
it was cut by the sharp outline of roof and chimney-stack. The leaves
that had been fresh and green in May, but had grown dull in the heat and
dust of summer, were once more beautiful. The dirty green had changed
to a shrivelled, metallic copper. A few mornings of golden mist would
break into a day of sultry splendour; then would come the first warning
of frost--the chill air at sundown, the grey dawn that held no promise
of sunshine. Oh, soon enough the boughs would be leafless, the streets
bare and wintersome. But who could be sad on this day of suspended
decadence, this afternoon laden with the heavy autumn scents. Were not
the year's decay, the lengthening evenings, part of the eternal law
of nature--birth and death, spring and winter, and an awakening after
sleep? The falling leaves suggested to him no analogy with the elusive
enchantments of the senses.
Two days later he received a letter from Mr Marston offering him a post
of a hundred and fifty pounds a year, with all expenses found.
"You will understand, of course," the letter ran, "that at present you
are on probation. Our work is personal and requires special gifts. These
gifts, however, I believe you to possess. For both our sakes I hope
that you will make a success of this. Gerald is sailing for Brussels
at the end of October, and I expect that you will be able to arrange to
accompany him. He will tell you what you will need to take out with you.
We usually make our representative an allowance of fifteen pounds for
personal expenses, but I daresay that we could in your case, if it is
necessary, increase this sum."
Roland handed the letter to his father.
Mr Whately, as usual in the morning, was in a state of nervous
excitement. He was always a considerable trial to his family at
breakfast. And as often as possible Roland delayed his own appearance
till he had heard the slam of the front door. It is not easy to enjoy a
meal when someone is bouncing from table to sideboard, reading extracts
from the morning paper, opening letters, running up and down stairs,
forgetting things in the hall. Mr Whately had never been able to face
the first hour of the morning with dignity and composure. When Roland
handed him Mr Marston's letter he received it with the impatience of a
busy man, who objects to being worried by an absurd trifle.
"Yes, what is it? What is it?"
"A letter from Mr Marston, father, that I thought you might like to
read."
"Oh, yes, of course; well, wait a minute," and he projected himself out
of the door and up the stairs. He returned within a minute, panting and
flustered.
"Yes; now what's the time? Twenty-five past eight. I've got seven
minutes. Where's this letter of yours, Roland? Let me see."
He picked up the letter and began to read it as he helped himself to
another rasher of bacon. His agitation increased as he read.
"But I don't understand," he said impatiently. "What's all this about Mr
Marston offering you a post in his business?"
"What's that, dear?" said Mrs Whately quickly. "Isn't Roland going into
the bank after all?"
"Yes, of course he is going into the bank," her husband replied hastily.
"It's all settled. Don't interrupt me, Roland. I can't understand what
you've been doing!"
And he flung the back of his hand against his forehead, a favourite
gesture when the pressure of the conversation grew intense.
"I don't know what it's all about, Roland," he continued. "I don't know
anything about this man. Who he is, and what he is. And I don't know why
you've been arranging all these things behind my back."
Roland expressed surprise that his father had not welcomed the offer of
so promising a post. But Mr Whately was too flustered to consider the
matter in this light. "It may be a better job," he said, "I don't know.
But the bank has been settled and I can't think why you should want to
alter things. At any rate, I can't stop to discuss it now," and a minute
later the front door had banged behind a querulous, irritable little
man, who considered no one had any right to disturb--especially at the
breakfast-table--the placid course of his existence. As he left the
room he flung the letter upon the table, and Mrs Whately snatched it up
eagerly. Roland watched carefully the expression of her face as she read
it. At first he noted there only a relieved happiness, but as she folded
the letter and handed it back he saw that she was sad.
"Of course it's splendid, Roland," she said. "I'm delighted, but.... Oh,
well, I do think you might have told us something about it before."
"I wanted to, mother, but one doesn't like to shout till one's out of
the wood."
"With friends, no, but with one's parents--surely you might have
confided in us."
There was no such implied disapproval in April's reception of the news.
He had not seen her since the afternoon when he had kissed her, and
he had wondered in what spirit she would receive him. Would there be
awkward stammered explanations? Would she be coy and protest "that she
had been silly, that she had not meant it, that it must never happen
again?" He had little previous experience to guide him and he was still
debating the point when he arrived at No. 73 Hammerton Rise.
What April Curtis did was to open the door for him, close it quickly
behind him as soon as he was in the porch, take him happily by both
hands and hold her face up to be kissed. There was not the least
embarrassment in her action.
"Well?" she said, on a note of interrogation.
For answer he put his hand into his pocket, drew out Mr Marston's letter
and gave it to her.
April pulled it out of the envelope, hurriedly unfolded it, and ran an
engrossed eye over its contents.
"Oh, but how splendid, Roland; now it's all right. Now there's no need
to worry about anything. Come at once and tell mother. Mother, mother!"
she shouted, and catching Roland by the hand dragged him after her
towards the drawing-room.
Mrs Curtis had, through the laborious passage of fifty-two uneventful
years, so trained her face to assume on all occasions an expression of
pleasant sentimental interest in the affairs of others that b
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