________________________________________________
_ In practical matters Mr. Pembroke was often a generous man. He
offered Rickie a good salary, and insisted on paying Agnes as
well. And as he housed them for nothing, and as Rickie would also
have a salary from the school, the money question disappeared--if
not forever, at all events for the present.
"I can work you in," he said. "Leave all that to me, and in a few
days you shall hear from the headmaster.
He shall create a vacancy. And once in, we stand or fall
together. I am resolved on that."
Rickie did not like the idea of being "worked in," but he was
determined to raise no difficulties. It is so easy to be refined
and high-minded when we have nothing to do. But the active,
useful man cannot be equally particular. Rickie's programme
involved a change in values as well as a change of occupation.
"Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude," Mr. Pembroke continued.
"I do not advise you at present even to profess any interest in
athletics or organization. When the headmaster writes, he will
probably ask whether you are an all-round man. Boldly say no. A
bold 'no' is at times the best. Take your stand upon classics and
general culture."
Classics! A second in the Tripos. General culture. A smattering
of English Literature, and less than a smattering of French.
"That is how we begin. Then we get you a little post--say that of
librarian. And so on, until you are indispensable."
Rickie laughed; the headmaster wrote, the reply was satisfactory,
and in due course the new life began.
Sawston was already familiar to him. But he knew it as an
amateur, and under an official gaze it grouped itself afresh. The
school, a bland Gothic building, now showed as a fortress of
learning, whose outworks were the boarding-houses. Those
straggling roads were full of the houses of the parents of the
day-boys. These shops were in bounds, those out. How often had he
passed Dunwood House! He had once confused it with its rival,
Cedar View. Now he was to live there--perhaps for many years. On
the left of the entrance a large saffron drawing-room, full of
cosy corners and dumpy chairs: here the parents would be
received. On the right of the entrance a study, which he shared
with Herbert: here the boys would be caned--he hoped not often.
In the hall a framed certificate praising the drains, the bust of
Hermes, and a carved teak monkey holding out a salver. Some of
the furniture had come from Shelthorpe, some had been bought from
Mr. Annison, some of it was new. But throughout he recognized a
certain decision of arrangement. Nothing in the house was
accidental, or there merely for its own sake. He contrasted it
with his room at Cambridge, which had been a jumble of things
that he loved dearly and of things that he did not love at all.
Now these also had come to Dunwood House, and had been
distributed where each was seemly--Sir Percival to the
drawing-room, the photograph of Stockholm to the passage, his
chair, his inkpot, and the portrait of his mother to the study.
And then he contrasted it with the Ansells' house, to which their
resolute ill-taste had given unity. He was extremely sensitive to
the inside of a house, holding it an organism that expressed the
thoughts, conscious and subconscious, of its inmates. He was
equally sensitive to places. He would compare Cambridge with
Sawston, and either with a third type of existence, to which, for
want of a better name, he gave the name of "Wiltshire."
It must not be thought that he is going to waste his time. These
contrasts and comparisons never took him long, and he never
indulged in them until the serious business of the day was over.
And, as time passed, he never indulged in them at all.
The school returned at the end of January, before he had been
settled in a week. His health had improved, but not greatly, and
he was nervous at the prospect of confronting the assembled
house. All day long cabs had been driving up, full of boys in
bowler hats too big for them; and Agnes had been superintending
the numbering of the said hats, and the placing of them in
cupboards, since they would not be wanted till the end of the
term. Each boy had, or should have had, a bag, so that he need
not unpack his box till the morrow, One boy had only a
brown-paper parcel, tied with hairy string, and Rickie heard the
firm pleasant voice say, "But you'll bring a bag next term," and
the submissive, "Yes, Mrs. Elliot," of the reply. In the passage
he ran against the head boy, who was alarmingly like an
undergraduate. They looked at each other suspiciously, and
parted. Two minutes later he ran into another boy, and then into
another, and began to wonder whether they were doing it on
purpose, and if so, whether he ought to mind. As the day wore on,
the noises grew louder-trampings of feet, breakdowns, jolly
little squawks--and the cubicles were assigned, and the bags
unpacked, and the bathing arrangements posted up, and Herbert
kept on saying, "All this is informal--all this is informal. We
shall meet the house at eight fifteen."
And so, at eight ten, Rickie put on his cap and gown,--hitherto
symbols of pupilage, now to be symbols of dignity,--the very cap
and gown that Widdrington had so recently hung upon the college
fountain. Herbert, similarly attired, was waiting for him in
their private dining-room, where also sat Agnes, ravenously
devouring scrambled eggs. "But you'll wear your hoods," she
cried. Herbert considered, and them said she was quite right. He
fetched his white silk, Rickie the fragment of rabbit's wool that
marks the degree of B.A. Thus attired, they proceeded through the
baize door. They were a little late, and the boys, who were
marshalled in the preparation room, were getting uproarious. One,
forgetting how far his voice carried, shouted, "Cave! Here comes
the Whelk." And another young devil yelled, "The Whelk's brought
a pet with him!"
"You mustn't mind," said Herbert kindly. "We masters make a point
of never minding nicknames--unless, of course, they are applied
openly, in which case a thousand lines is not too much." Rickie
assented, and they entered the preparation room just as the
prefects had established order.
Here Herbert took his seat on a high-legged chair, while Rickie,
like a queen-consort, sat near him on a chair with somewhat
shorter legs. Each chair had a desk attached to it, and Herbert
flung up the lid of his, and then looked round the preparation
room with a quick frown, as if the contents had surprised him. So
impressed was Rickie that he peeped sideways, but could only see
a little blotting-paper in the desk. Then he noticed that the
boys were impressed too. Their chatter ceased. They attended.
The room was almost full. The prefects, instead of lolling
disdainfully in the back row, were ranged like councillors
beneath the central throne. This was an innovation of Mr.
Pembroke's. Carruthers, the head boy, sat in the middle, with his
arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had made the matron too bright:
he nearly lost his colours in consequence. These two were grown
up. Beside them sat Tewson, a saintly child in the spectacles,
who had risen to this height by reason of his immense learning.
He, like the others, was a school prefect. The house prefects, an
inferior brand, were beyond, and behind came the
indistinguishable many. The faces all looked alike as yet--except
the face of one boy, who was inclined to cry.
"School," said Mr. Pembroke, slowly closing the lid of the desk,
--"school is the world in miniature." Then he paused, as a man
well may who has made such a remark. It is not, however, the
intention of this work to quote an opening address. Rickie, at
all events, refused to be critical: Herbert's experience was far
greater than his, and he must take his tone from him. Nor
could any one criticize the exhortations to be patriotic,
athletic, learned, and religious, that flowed like a four-part
fugue from Mr. Pembroke's mouth. He was a practised speaker--that
is to say, he held his audience's attention. He told them that
this term, the second of his reign, was THE term for Dunwood
House; that it behooved every boy to labour during it for his
house's honour, and, through the house, for the honour of the
school. Taking a wider range, he spoke of England, or rather of
Great Britain, and of her continental foes. Portraits of
empire-builders hung on the wall, and he pointed to them. He
quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had broadened
since the days of Shakespeare, who, for all his genius,
could only write of his country as--
"This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This hazy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea."
And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the
preparation room and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then
he paused, and in the silence came "sob, sob, sob," from a little
boy, who was regretting a villa in Guildford and his mother's
half acre of garden.
The proceeding terminated with the broader patriotism of the
school anthem, recently composed by the organist. Words and tune
were still a matter for taste, and it was Mr. Pembroke (and he
only because he had the music) who gave the right intonation to
"Perish each laggard! Let it not be said
That Sawston such within her walls hath bred."
"Come, come," he said pleasantly, as they ended with harmonies in
the style of Richard Strauss. "This will never do. We must
grapple with the anthem this term--you're as tuneful as--as
day-boys!"
Hearty laughter, and then the whole house filed past them and
shook hands.
"But how did it impress you?" Herbert asked, as soon as they were
back in their own part. Agnes had provided them with a tray of
food: the meals were still anyhow, and she had to fly at once to
see after the boys.
"I liked the look of them."
"I meant rather, how did the house impress you as a house?"
"I don't think I thought," said Rickie rather nervously. "It is
not easy to catch the spirit of a thing at once. I only saw a
roomful of boys."
"My dear Rickie, don't be so diffident. You are perfectly right.
You only did see a roomful of boys. As yet there's nothing else
to see. The house, like the school, lacks tradition. Look at
Winchester. Look at the traditional rivalry between Eton and
Harrow. Tradition is of incalculable importance, if a school is
to have any status. Why should Sawston be without?"
"Yes. Tradition is of incalculable value. And I envy those
schools that have a natural connection with the past. Of course
Sawston has a past, though not of the kind that you quite want.
The sons of poor tradesmen went to it at first. So wouldn't its
traditions be more likely to linger in the Commercial School?" he
concluded nervously.
"You have a great deal to learn--a very great deal. Listen to me.
Why has Sawston no traditions?" His round, rather foolish, face
assumed the expression of a conspirator. Bending over the mutton,
he whispered, "I can tell you why. Owing to the day-boys. How can
traditions flourish in such soil? Picture the day-boy's life--at
home for meals, at home for preparation, at home for sleep,
running home with every fancied wrong. There are day-boys in your
class, and, mark my words, they will give you ten times as much
trouble as the boarders, late, slovenly, stopping away at the
slightest pretext. And then the letters from the parents! 'Why
has my boy not been moved this term?' 'Why has my boy been moved
this term?' 'I am a dissenter, and do not wish my boy to
subscribe to the school mission.' 'Can you let my boy off early
to water the garden?' Remember that I have been a day-boy
house-master, and tried to infuse some esprit de corps into them.
It is practically impossible. They come as units, and units they
remain. Worse. They infect the boarders. Their pestilential,
critical, discontented attitude is spreading over the school. If
I had my own way--"
He stopped somewhat abruptly.
"Was that why you laughed at their singing?"
"Not at all. Not at all. It is not my habit to set one section of
the school against the other."
After a little they went the rounds. The boys were in bed now.
"Good-night!" called Herbert, standing in the corridor of the
cubicles, and from behind each of the green curtains came the
sound of a voice replying, "Good-night, sir!" "Good-night," he
observed into each dormitory.
Then he went to the switch in the passage and plunged the whole
house into darkness. Rickie lingered behind him, strangely
impressed. In the morning those boys had been scattered over
England, leading their own lives. Now, for three months, they
must change everything--see new faces, accept new ideals. They,
like himself, must enter a beneficent machine, and learn the
value of esprit de corps. Good luck attend them--good luck and a
happy release. For his heart would have them not in these
cubicles and dormitories, but each in his own dear home, amongst
faces and things that he knew.
Next morning, after chapel, he made the acquaintance of his
class. Towards that he felt very differently. Esprit de corps was
not expected of it. It was simply two dozen boys who were
gathered together for the purpose of learning Latin. His duties
and difficulties would not lie here. He was not required to
provide it with an atmosphere. The scheme of work was already
mapped out, and he started gaily upon familiar words--
"Pan, ovium custos, tua si tibi Maenala curae
Adsis, O Tegaee, favens."
"Do you think that beautiful?" he asked, and received the honest
answer, "No, sir; I don't think I do." He met Herbert in high
spirits in the quadrangle during the interval. But Herbert
thought his enthusiasm rather amateurish, and cautioned him.
"You must take care they don't get out of hand. I approve of a
lively teacher, but discipline must be established first."
"I felt myself a learner, not a teacher. If I'm wrong over a
point, or don't know, I mean to tell them at once."
Herbert shook his head.
"It's different if I was really a scholar. But I can't pose as
one, can I? I know much more than the boys, but I know very
little. Surely the honest thing is to be myself to them. Let them
accept or refuse me as that. That's the only attitude we shall
any of us profit by in the end."
Mr. Pembroke was silent. Then he observed, "There is, as you say,
a higher attitude and a lower attitude. Yet here, as so often,
cannot we find a golden mean between them?"
"What's that?" said a dreamy voice. They turned and saw a tall,
spectacled man, who greeted the newcomer kindly, and took hold of
his arm. "What's that about the golden mean?"
"Mr. Jackson--Mr. Elliot: Mr. Elliot--Mr. Jackson," said Herbert,
who did not seem quite pleased. "Rickie, have you a moment to
spare me?"
But the humanist spoke to the young man about the golden mean and
the pinchbeck mean, adding, "You know the Greeks aren't broad church
clergymen. They really aren't, in spite of much conflicting
evidence. Boys will regard Sophocles as a kind of enlightened
bishop, and something tells me that they are wrong."
"Mr. Jackson is a classical enthusiast," said Herbert. "He makes
the past live. I want to talk to you about the humdrum present."
"And I am warning him against the humdrum past. "That's another
point, Mr. Elliot. Impress on your class that many Greeks and
most Romans were frightfully stupid, and if they disbelieve you,
read Ctesiphon with them, or Valerius Flaccus. Whatever is
that noise?"
"It comes from your class-room, I think," snapped the other
master.
"So it does. Ah, yes. I expect they are putting your little
Tewson into the waste-paper basket."
"I always lock my class-room in the interval--"
"Yes?"
"--and carry the key in my pocket."
"Ah. But, Mr. Elliot, I am a cousin of Widdrington's. He wrote to
me about you. I am so glad. Will you, first of all, come to
supper next Sunday?"
"I am afraid," put in Herbert, "that we poor housemasters must
deny ourselves festivities in term time."
"But mayn't he come once, just once?"
"May, my dear Jackson! My brother-in-law is not a baby. He
decides for himself."
Rickie naturally refused. As soon as they were out of hearing,
Herbert said, "This is a little unfortunate. Who is Mr.
Widdrington?"
"I knew him at Cambridge."
"Let me explain how we stand," he continued, after a pause.
"Jackson is the worst of the reactionaries here, while I--why
should I conceal it?--have thrown in my lot with the party of
progress. You will see how we suffer from him at the masters'
meetings. He has no talent for organization, and yet he is always
inflicting his ideas on others. It was like his impertinence to
dictate to you what authors you should read, and meanwhile the
sixth-form room like a bear-garden, and a school prefect being
put into the waste-paper basket. My good Rickie, there's nothing
to smile at. How is the school to go on with a man like that? It
would be a case of 'quick march,' if it was not for his brilliant
intellect. That's why I say it's a little unfortunate. You will
have very little in common, you and he."
Rickie did not answer. He was very fond of Widdrington, who was a
quaint, sensitive person. And he could not help being attracted
by Mr. Jackson, whose welcome contrasted pleasantly with the
official breeziness of his other colleagues. He wondered, too,
whether it is so very reactionary to contemplate the antique.
"It is true that I vote Conservative," pursued Mr. Pembroke,
apparently confronting some objector. "But why? Because the
Conservatives, rather than the Liberals, stand for progress. One
must not be misled by catch-words."
"Didn't you want to ask me something?"
"Ah, yes. You found a boy in your form called Varden?"
"Varden? Yes; there is."
"Drop on him heavily. He has broken the statutes of the school.
He is attending as a day-boy. The statutes provide that a boy
must reside with his parents or guardians. He does neither. It
must be stopped. You must tell the headmaster."
"Where does the boy live?"
"At a certain Mrs. Orr's, who has no connection with the school
of any kind. It must be stopped. He must either enter a
boarding-house or go."
"But why should I tell?" said Rickie. He remembered the boy, an
unattractive person with protruding ears, "It is the business of
his house-master."
"House-master--exactly. Here we come back again. Who is now the
day-boys' house-master? Jackson once again--as if anything was
Jackson's business! I handed the house back last term in a most
flourishing condition. It has already gone to rack and ruin for
the second time. To return to Varden. I have unearthed a put-up
job. Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Orr are friends. Do you see? It all
works round."
"I see. It does--or might."
"The headmaster will never sanction it when it's put to him
plainly."
"But why should I put it?" said Rickie, twisting the ribbons of
his gown round his fingers.
"Because you're the boy's form-master."
"Is that a reason?"
"Of course it is."
"I only wondered whether--" He did not like to say that he
wondered whether he need do it his first morning.
"By some means or other you must find out--of course you know
already, but you must find out from the boy. I know--I have it!
Where's his health certificate?"
"He had forgotten it."
"Just like them. Well, when he brings it, it will be signed by
Mrs. Orr, and you must look at it and say, 'Orr--Orr--Mrs.
Orr?' or something to that effect, and then the whole thing will
come naturally out."
The bell rang, and they went in for the hour of school that
concluded the morning. Varden brought his health certificate--a
pompous document asserting that he had not suffered from roseola
or kindred ailments in the holidays--and for a long time Rickie
sat with it before him, spread open upon his desk. He did not
quite like the job. It suggested intrigue, and he had come to
Sawston not to intrigue but to labour. Doubtless Herbert was
right, and Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Orr were wrong. But why could
they not have it out among themselves? Then he thought, "I am a
coward, and that's why I'm raising these objections," called the
boy up to him, and it did all come out naturally, more or less.
Hitherto Varden had lived with his mother; but she had left
Sawston at Christmas, and now he would live with Mrs. Orr. "Mr.
Jackson, sir, said it would be all right."
"Yes, yes," said Rickie; "quite so." He remembered Herbert's
dictum: "Masters must present a united front. If they do not--the
deluge." He sent the boy back to his seat, and after school took
the compromising health certificate to the headmaster. The
headmaster was at that time easily excited by a breach of the
constitution. "Parents or guardians," he reputed--"parents or
guardians," and flew with those words on his lips to Mr. Jackson.
To say that Rickie was a cat's-paw is to put it too strongly.
Herbert was strictly honourable, and never pushed him into an
illegal or really dangerous position; but there is no doubt that
on this and on many other occasions he had to do things that he
would not otherwise have done. There was always some diplomatic
corner that had to be turned, always something that he had to say
or not to say. As the term wore on he lost his independence--
almost without knowing it. He had much to learn about boys, and
he learnt not by direct observation--for which he believed he was
unfitted--but by sedulous imitation of the more experienced
masters. Originally he had intended to be friends with his
pupils, and Mr. Pembroke commended the intention highly; but you
cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself
away in the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He,
for "personal intercourse," substituted the safer "personal
influence," and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly
traps, in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his
shy delicate thoughts, while the master, intact, commends or
corrects them. Originally Rickie had meant to help boys in the
anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at Cambridge
he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a subject
in which we must inevitably speak as one human being to another,
not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for
this reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a
few formulae. Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's
line, so he abandoned these subjects altogether and confined
himself to working hard at what was easy. In the house he did as
Herbert did, and referred all doubtful subjects to him. In his
form, oddly enough, he became a martinet. It is so much simpler
to be severe. He grasped the school regulations, and insisted on
prompt obedience to them. He adopted the doctrine of collective
responsibility. When one boy was late, he punished the whole
form. "I can't help it," he would say, as if he was a power of
nature. As a teacher he was rather dull. He curbed his own
enthusiasms, finding that they distracted his attention, and that
while he throbbed to the music of Virgil the boys in the back row
were getting unruly. But on the whole he liked his form work: he
knew why he was there, and Herbert did not overshadow him so
completely.
What was amiss with Herbert? He had known that something was
amiss, and had entered into partnership with open eyes. The man
was kind and unselfish; more than that he was truly charitable,
and it was a real pleasure to him to give--pleasure to others.
Certainly he might talk too much about it afterwards; but it was
the doing, not the talking, that he really valued, and
benefactors of this sort are not too common. He was, moreover,
diligent and conscientious: his heart was in his work, and his
adherence to the Church of England no mere matter of form. He was
capable of affection: he was usually courteous and tolerant. Then
what was amiss? Why, in spite of all these qualities, should
Rickie feel that there was something wrong with him--nay, that he
was wrong as a whole, and that if the Spirit of Humanity should
ever hold a judgment he would assuredly be classed among the
goats? The answer at first sight appeared a graceless one--it was
that Herbert was stupid. Not stupid in the ordinary sense--he had
a business-like brain, and acquired knowledge easily--but stupid
in the important sense: his whole life was coloured by a contempt
of the intellect. That he had a tolerable intellect of his own
was not the point: it is in what we value, not in what we have,
that the test of us resides. Now, Rickie's intellect was not
remarkable. He came to his worthier results rather by imagination
and instinct than by logic. An argument confused him, and he
could with difficulty follow it even on paper. But he saw in this
no reason for satisfaction, and tried to make such use of his
brain as he could, just as a weak athlete might lovingly exercise
his body. Like a weak athlete, too, he loved to watch the
exploits, or rather the efforts, of others--their efforts not so
much to acquire knowledge as to dispel a little of the darkness
by which we and all our acquisitions are surrounded. Cambridge
had taught him this, and he knew, if for no other reason, that
his time there had not been in vain. And Herbert's contempt for
such efforts revolted him. He saw that for all his fine talk
about a spiritual life he had but one test for things--success:
success for the body in this life or for the soul in the life to
come. And for this reason Humanity, and perhaps such other
tribunals as there may be, would assuredly reject him. _
Read next: PART 2 - SAWSTON: CHAPTER 18
Read previous: PART 2 - SAWSTON: CHAPTER 16
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