Читать книгу The Life and Exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy - Страница 27

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It was soon after his elevation to monitorial rank and in the beginning of summer term 1775, that Percy received a summons from the headmaster. This was to apprise him of the sudden death of his father in Berlin from heart failure. The boy was granted long leave from school. The Marquis of Fulford, who was one of the trustees under Sir Algernon’s will and appointed Percy’s guardian until the latter’s majority, acted once again in that spirit of kindliness which he had always shown to the Blakeneys: he took the carrying out of all the legal formalities on his shoulders, as well as the doleful task of bringing the body across from Germany to its last resting place in England.

Percy Blakeney, at fifteen years of age, found himself a full-fledged baronet and the possessor of a vast fortune. His feelings in the matter of losing his father so unexpectedly must have been very mixed. He had never understood and never loved his father. The first sense of bereavement, such as it was, was soon submerged in that of childish pride in his own wealth, and of enjoyment in having the freedom to spend.

Lord Fulford’s guardianship was of the kindest and most easy-going where pocket-money and expenditure were concerned. He was one of those men who believed in allowing growing boys as much freedom of action as their character permitted.

For Percy the mere fact of losing his father could not have perturbed him: love as between father and son had been entirely absent in their relationship towards one another and their intercourse remained devoid of all sympathy and understanding. The boy had no real cause for weeping: no apparent cause for sorrow. No thread in his life had been snapped: no loving memory broken. On the contrary, he was now given new hopes for the future and he seems at this stage to have let life roll on as before, just as if nothing of any great significance had happened or any radical change in his life had occurred. This attitude he summed up in a letter to his guardian in answer to questions relating to his new estate.

“I cannot,” he wrote on his return to Harrow, “go about with a long face. I hope you, sir, who so well understand my family, will perceive that I am not unfeeling or lacking in gentlemanly instincts. The reverse of the case is the truth. I glory in the fact that I am entitled to be called ‘Mister’ Blakeney by my masters instead of my surname tout court. As to my future, I am very undecided. I hope that you will permit me to remain here for another two years at least. Frankly, the University does not attract me, but I may enter politics with my good friend Pitt. Or else I shall roam about the world a bit. I suppose the truth is that I do not know what I want.”

The school round and the onerous monitor’s duties soon drew him back into Harrow life again, and his bereavement was forgotten in the everyday excitement of writing lists, preparing lessons and supervising meals. His drawl of a voice convulsed the school when first he read the lessons in chapel: his attempt to sing in the choir gave the music master a stomach-ache. On the other hand, he kept the junior school well in order, and never had there been such quiet during preparation as when Blakeney was in command.

The illicit joys of breaking bounds and drinking at taverns were quickly suppressed amongst the Lower School, though many an afternoon saw Sir Percy and his three friends in the bar parlour playing cards. Likewise he seems to have kept a stable and to have gone hunting regularly once a week, though how he managed to do this is difficult to conjecture, for this form of sport was strictly forbidden by the law of the school since London was only a few hours’ ride away. But authority, in those days rather partisan, winked at Percy’s misdemeanors, so long as his iron discipline over the Lower School remained unchallenged and unimpaired.

And he took those prerogatives for granted as if they were his due. He never stopped to consider the ethics of his conduct and whether he was setting a bad example to others: the boys, on the other hand, allowed Blakeney’s defiance of the laws to go unchallenged, because they realised that he was a good sportsman, always willing to turn a laugh against himself and that he never lost control of his temper even under the most severe provocation.

Since Percy seemed to have no inclination for any special branch of learning, the problem of his future exercised his tutors far more than it worried their pupil. They mapped out several careers for him, pointing out with infinite pains the advantages to be gained from the Law, the Army, or whatever happened to be the proposal of the moment. But all they encountered was a rebuff accompanied by an inane and merry laugh and the invariable remark:

“Lud, sir, I’m too demmed lazy. What you propose requires brain not brawn.”

Lord Fulford, at whose home Sir Percy now stayed on all occasions, when told of these well-meaning meddlers, threw up his hands in horror, exclaiming:

“For God’s sake, Percy, behave decently like a gentleman. There is no earthly necessity for you to work.”

With which statement Sir Percy heartily concurred. However, now and again, books were read and annotated, a few notes were written in the margin: an occasional brilliant essay was painfully born, for at eighteen, Percy was fired with the zeal of saving England from the hands of traitors — those foul men being Rockingham, Fox and others. His admiration for Pitt spurred him on to the nearest approach to hard work ever yet done by him, and, before leaving Harrow for good, he had pledged himself to stand by his friend as soon as the latter should be Prime Minister.

The masters, perceiving the futility of ever persuading the youth to undertake a serious career, soon dropped the subject, for which Sir Percy was eternally grateful.