Читать книгу The Life and Exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy - Страница 22

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Percy was sent to Harrow at the age of twelve. To him, school was a word totally devoid of meaning, but the idea of living in community with two hundred or so other boys of various ages did convey a sense of excitement and of thrill to his young mind; even though he felt somewhat dismayed at the thought of regular and systematized lessons. The few stories of brutal discipline which had reached his ears at different times left him cold and unmoved since the fear of birch and cane was nil, and he felt that his powerful physique, aided by his skill in boxing, would relieve him of the unwanted attentions of any bully who might attempt to bait him. But the preliminaries of departure were highly exciting and entirely to his taste. There was the visit to Lord Fulford who had signed his nomination papers: there was the pleasure of buying new clothes, there was the joy of seeing London for the first time.

Any nervousness which he may have felt towards the approaching reality of school was rapidly dissipated by the delight of being treated as a grown-up man by his elders. The stories of past Harrovians and their exploits, as recounted by Lord Fulford, thrilled Percy. In spite of his foreign and haphazard upbringing, the associations which Harrow had with the great names of English history and the traditions of the old school, not only enthralled his romantic heart, but fired him with enthusiasm for his future life there and created in him a pride that he should have the honour of adding his name to its list.

Young Percy would have been saved many weeks of toil and bodily exertion if Sir Algernon, who was not a public school boy, had not said aloud in the school ante-room:

“Well, Percy, this is Harrow: hope you’ll like it. I shall stay here for a few days to see how you settle down and to hear what the Headmaster decides about you.”

Probably fifty or more of the two hundred Harrovians must have overheard this piece of fatherly solicitude: and for these lads there was plenty of humour in the fact that a boy of twelve should be accompanied to school. But still more comic was it that the father should put up at Harrow for the night in order to watch over the entry of his young hopeful. Sir Algernon, by offending against this unwritten law which forbids parents to accompany sons on the opening day of term, had placed Percy at an unfair disadvantage since Harrow was an arena where you must be a hero and stand upon your own two feet, if you were not to escape ridicule.

The next day he was examined in the library by his three masters, and gave a very doubtful account of his learning. The two M.A.’s, after testing his classical knowledge, expressed their views in unreticent language. Doctor Robert Sumner, the Head, however, mindful of Lord Fulford’s personal influence with the board of Governors’ soon discovered Percy’s miraculous fluency in two foreign languages, his practical notions of geography and his absorbed interest in history which put him on a better footing with the other masters. So Percy was admitted to the school, though in a class below that of boys of his age. Luckily, Sir Algernon was resigned to this verdict, he had not expected any other, and was indeed highly grateful that the lad had passed the simple tests at all.

Father and son thereupon parted and Percy returned to his house, where he was shown into a dormitory wherein were several beds and, not knowing what to do, he lay down on one and fell fast asleep. He was quickly awakened by a douche of cold water which some one was gently squeezing out of a sponge down his neck. By the time he had returned to full wakefulness, his aggressor had fled and only the sound of running footsteps dying away down the corridor and the echo of mirthful and mischievous laughter revealed to Percy that he had not been dreaming, but had, indeed, been the victim of a mild rag.

Seething with rage at the thought that his tormentor had escaped his just wrath, he did not intend to sit quietly under the insult. He resented most of all that he had been taken unawares and had been found guilty of sleeping when he felt that he should have been awake; he was angry that he had placed himself in such a ridiculous position at the very outset of his school career. He ran hurriedly down the stairs to seek out the offender, but was met in the ante-room by a monitor who led him into the hall and introduced him to the other boys.

As the quizzing stare of a hundred pairs of eyes was riveted upon him, Percy nearly lost his self-composure, but, pinning his faith in brawn, he drew himself up to his full height, conscious of his perfectly fitting clothes; he achieved an elegant bow and sat down in the place allotted to him. During the meal, twinges of uneasiness coursed down his spine and he was haunted with the suspicion that all the boys knew of his discomfiture; he felt that he was surrounded by grinning faces which seemed to be enjoying the joke perpetrated at his expense. He observed, however, that though most of the glances levelled in his direction were humorous, there certainly was no malice apparent in them.

He found that he was to share a room with three boys — young Lord Bathurst, Andrew Ffoulkes and William Pitt.

That evening, he should have undergone the inevitable and usually extremely unpleasant initiation at the hands of his elders, but, deeming that a policy of aggression was to be preferred to one of passivity, he came to the conclusion that it would be better to pick a quarrel than to have one forced upon him. He therefore strode up to Bathurst, the biggest and most powerful in the room, and scrutinised the latter’s clothes in obvious and undisguised scorn.

“What a disgusting fit!” he said coolly. “Really, Bathurst, you must permit me to introduce you to my tailor. Just look at that demmed seam.”

And he ripped up the other boy’s beautiful velvet coat from tail to collar. The other two stood aghast and gaped at the impudence, but its show put a temporary stop to the processes of initiation and the night passed off fairly comfortably for the new boy. In the morning, however, the rule was that every boy should walk naked over the stone floor to the bathroom; in winter this was an extremely uncomfortable proceeding, but to a new boy it was a very trying ordeal. Ffoulkes grinning at Percy declared loudly that “Blakeney’s flesh was too demmed white to be tolerated.”

Whereupon Percy had two fights on his hands within twenty-four hours of his arrival.

In the first hours of school, Percy’s colossal ignorance on almost every subject struck not only the masters, but the other boys themselves. Ordinarily, ignorance in a new boy elicited a good deal of sympathy, but rumour of the insult to a head boy had gone the round of the school; it was felt that expressions of sympathy might not be welcome and Percy was left severely alone. But this state of isolation did not last long. That very afternoon he was able to show his superiority in the fisticuffs as well as his ability to impose his will on others. Accompanied by the usual ceremonies, he fought both boys in the milling ground beneath the old school yard, and, after the double fight, walked off the field not only twice a victor, but already the acknowledged leader of the junior aristocratic set.

Thereafter life went on comfortably enough for Percy. He made friends with the three inmates of his dormitory and the quartette presented a united face to the rest of the school.

Though Harrow was a small republic, yet there were two distinct parties among the boys — those who were peers or heirs to peerages and those who were not. Even amongst the former class, there was a line of demarcation which, though never openly referred to, was none the less clear. This consisted of the “ancients,” as they were called — men who could boast of an ancestor who had come over with the Conqueror or fought in the Crusades — and those who had only recently been ennobled.

Within these subdivisions there was complete public solidarity: the boys voted, played games, and acted generally in unison, even though in private bitter feuds would often be waged. The “ancients” in their pride of birth drew a distinct social line between themselves and the newly ennobled, whose swagger and assumption of aristocratic ancestry they both mocked and despised. Nevertheless, they were ready to admit into their innermost circle any boy who happened to be very rich or a fine athlete, even though his grandfather had been born in the gutter.

Popularity was not easily won at Harrow in those days, even if a boy became a “blood” or a scholar. Respect, admiration, and a circle of friends could only be won after several years, when, either through good luck or charming personality, a boy arrived at the monitor stage. But strangely enough Blakeney was an exception to this rule.

None of the boys quite realized how it was that he had become such a popular figure in the school in so short a time, in spite of the great drawbacks of being only a new boy and a fag. His dandified dress, his indolent and indifferent ways, his witty and often acid sallies, his inane and infectious laughter on all and every occasion, would in the ordinary course of events, have been branded as nothing short of impertinence and would have brought down on his head the collective wrath of Harrovians. But somehow he escaped the usual punishment meted out to eccentricities. He naturally ran the gauntlet of the innumerable raggings to which a new boy was invariably subjected.

At first, he was singled out for especial treatment in this respect and received rather more than his full share of horseplay at the hands of the few who resented his polished and somewhat foreign manners. The Lower School ragged him just to see what he would do, and to provoke him to further exploits. His fists were kept busy at first, but soon many ceased their unwelcome attentions because they found their baiting too painful to themselves. Brute force is always admired by the very young and Percy’s physique earned him the respect of his fellows and thus he gradually acquired that ascendancy over them which had in the beginning puzzled the majority.

Somehow, at school singing, when it was his turn to stand upon the hall table and to sing a song to the accompaniment of jeers and raucous shouts, no one interrupted him though his voice certainly did not strike the choir-master as deserving of a place in the chapel choir. This and other incidents of a more or less trivial nature showed the extraordinary hold which Percy had over his schoolmates.

On the other hand, he cheerfully accomplished the menial duties assigned to him as a fag, never grumbling whatever the task. The captain of sports found in him a ready and powerful ally. The school clubs soon felt the weight of his presence. The rages of a more serious nature were developed more accurately and expeditiously under his suggestions. Above all, he never bragged of his exploits nor did he adopt a pose of a swagger. On the contrary, towards the boys he adopted an attitude of jolly companionship without the slightest hint of superiority.