Читать книгу The Lonely Unicorn - Alec Waugh - Страница 5

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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.