Читать книгу Secret Bread - F. Tennyson Jesse - Страница 30

For most children the first day at school is a memorable landmark; for Ishmael it was the more so because all his life hitherto he had lived in one atmosphere, without the little voyagings and visitings in which more happily-placed children are able to indulge. The change to St. Renny, although in the same county, was a great one, for whereas Cloom lay on the wind-swept promontory where only occasional folds in the land could give some hint of what gentler-nurtured pastures might be like, the whole little grey town of St. Renny seemed embowered in foliage that did not indeed encroach upon its actual ways, but that gave the rolling slopes of its guarding hills a richness of dark green that Ishmael had never imagined trees could hold. The life itself bore a very similar analogy to that he had led hitherto, not because the school was at all luxurious or riotous, but because his life, even at the Vicarage, had been of an unusual austerity. This new world held at once greater restrictions and more liberty of spirit, for at school every boy works out his own salvation or the reverse. Not being shy, Ishmael had no inner terrors to overcome—only a feeling for self-defence which was the outcome of his anomalous position. The Parson hoped and thought there would be no disagreeables about that at St. Renny; the headmaster, of course, knew of it, but of the boys, those adepts at torture, none happened to be from the furthest West. For St. Renny still bore the reputation it had attained under a famous headmaster, when the best known of West Country novelists had been a scholar there, and parents from right up the country, even from London itself, if they had the blood of Devon or Cornwall in their veins, sent their sons to grey St. Renny. It was with a London boy, son of a one-time Plymouth merchant who had become an alderman and a shining light of Bloomsbury, that Ishmael's fortunes were to be most closely linked.

In spite of his pose of self-sufficiency—so ingrained as to deceive himself—Ishmael's heart beat fast as he followed the Parson through the arched doorway of grey granite that was to open so often for him in the years to follow. He was filled with an inarticulate wonder at the knowledge that it was to be so, and it occurred to him for the first time—for children, like animals, accept what comes to them very naturally—that it was odd one could be so completely disposed of by grown-up people, even for one's undoubted good. …

Of the interview with the headmaster, so square of jowl and brow and yet so kindly, Ishmael remembered little in after years; for it became blurred by all he grew to know of "Old Tring" during the long though intermittent association of school. Old Tring rang a bell, after a gruff sentence of welcome, and, apparently as glad as Ishmael for an excuse to part, told him he should be shown round by one Killigrew. Old Tring added that he, Ishmael Ruan, would be sure to like Killigrew. Ishmael doubted this; somehow, waiting there in that still room, whose tranquillity seemed so much of its essence as to be more than a mere absence of noise, waiting and gazing at the strip of sunlit High Street that seemed lambent by contrast with the dimness within, Ishmael conceived a dislike to Killigrew. The name sounded brisk, brutal even; Ishmael was unaware that it was the fact that he had been told he would like Killigrew which awaked his antagonism. Unconsciously he resented that this old man should take advantage of knowing more of books to think that therefore he knew what he, Ishmael, would and would not like.

They all three waited; the Parson ran a finger along the lines of calf-bound books, then paused, Old Tring at his elbow. Ishmael was forgotten, isolated in himself, and, without warning, in the irrational way of such phases, he was overwhelmed by one of those strange periods in which, though actually but a second or so, time seems to hold its breath and the consciousness, muffled by some overwhelming dimness, is arrested and stands alone, on a pin-point of eternity, without past or future. It seemed to him that nothing would ever move again in the dim room, where for this fraction of a second everything was motionless except the dust motes that danced in the beam slanting through the low window, wreathing this way and that like steam within the strip of brightness, but ceasing to be visible at the edge as sharply as though they ceased to exist—as though an impalpable line ruled in the air would not allow the twisting coils to pass beyond, even when the pattern demanded it. Ishmael stared at this aerial path of living light, his mind hypnotised by it, and the remainder of the room by its contrasting density seemed to fall away from him; out of a great distance came the Parson's voice saying, "So you've got a first edition of the Antiquities. … " Followed the soft rubbing sound of one smooth book being drawn out from between its companions, then the crisper noise of large pages being turned.

The moment, which had seemed so intensely the present to Ishmael that during it he had thought it could never cease to be, reeled and sank into the past, leaving him with the feeling that time was once more in motion, like a vast clock whose pendulum has stopped for one beat, only to resume its swing again. At once it became possible that everything should go on, the idea of the incursion of the boy Killigrew ceased to be wildly chimerical, and with this acceptance of it Killigrew himself was in the room.

The vibrant path was no longer bright to the shutting-off of all else, material and mental; the Parson looked up from his first edition; Old Tring's hand, advancing, came into the strip of light, and seemed to spring to life, swelled to huge dimensions, became of a glowing whiteness. Killigrew, red-headed, freckled, standing with an air of surly self-protection, suddenly raised his light lashes to give the sweetest smile Ishmael had ever seen. Always, even in moments of irritation, it was to remain with him as illuminative of Killigrew—that peculiar radiant smile which carried him so softly, if not triumphantly, through life. It would have been a disgusting smile if it had been calculated, even self-conscious; as it was, it made of Killigrew a creature subtly apart, though for no deeper reason.

Old Tring said: "Killigrew, this is Ruan, who has come from Bolerium, or, as you would vulgarly term it, Land's End. Take him and show him the school, but bring him back to have tea with his guardian." The two boys went out and as he was shutting the door Ishmael, who had the woodland hearing of a little animal, caught some low-toned words of the Parson's: " … makings of a fine spirit. I assure you, Tring … " That was himself, Ishmael Ruan, whom they were speaking of. "A fine spirit … "; the phrase pricked his imagination—he swelled to it. He glanced at Killigrew, who was whistling in rosy unconsciousness of proximity to any spirit at all, and suddenly felt enormously relieved that the other boy had not heard, aware, by the new angle to which he was already responding, that Killigrew would have been disgusted rather than impressed. Once in the courtyard, the freemasonry of young things released from the pressure of grown-ups drew their eyes together. Unconsciously Ishmael thrust his hands into the trouser pockets of his new serge suit, in imitation of Killigrew, whose swagger was really a thing inimitable. Something stirred in Ishmael which had hitherto been unknown to him; it was not love, which in greater or lesser degree he already knew—for he was an affectionate boy in his inarticulate way—it was not merely an impulse for friendship; that would have been no alien thing. It was the beginning of that relationship which only masculine creatures ever really know, a relationship which is intimate without ever making inroads on privacy; full of pleasure in companionship without any feeling of a blank when apart; where love cannot be said to exist, and yet of which, if the irrevocableness of death remove one of the two, there remains to the other a void that is felt recurrently for the rest of his life whenever anything arises which that other person alone could have felt and appreciated in quite the same way. It was no David and Jonathan friendship which grew between Ishmael and Killigrew such as may sometimes be found among boys, but it was an intimacy that, in its aloof way, was to add something to the pattern of their lives that neither would have found without it.

In after years, if Ishmael had examined into the thing, which he never did, he would have seen that it was because, widely different as their two natures were, each had a side that corresponded. For everyone has a part of him, nearly always the larger, which is in relation with the general run of the world, and also a part which is out of key with it. Neither is more real than the other, though one is always bigger and more insistent than the other, and in the relative proportions lies every possibility. It was those parts of them which were out of key with the ordinary acceptances that were attuned in Ishmael and Killigrew, though neither was as yet aware they had such aspects, far less in what measure. On that first afternoon and for several days afterwards they were merely unthinkingly aware of a blind tolerance for each other that rose more nearly to a warm respect over the matter of Killigrew's badger.

This attractive though violent animal lurked in a hutch artfully concealed between the roof and the rafters at the far end of the dormitory where Killigrew slept. A trap door gave admission to the dim three-cornered place where heads had to be bowed for fear of the beams and voices and footsteps tuned down as low as possible lest someone in authority should overhear. For the badger was contraband, or so its owner, for greater glory, chose to assume, though as a matter of fact it was more than likely had permission been asked to keep the beast it would have been accorded, for St. Renny had its reputation as the great naturalists' school to keep up. Half the glamour surrounding the savage pet would have vanished, however, and the secret was jealously guarded, the badger himself, by his unconquerable stench, being the only person likely to give it away. Luckily the hutch was not directly over the dormitory, but right at the angle of the roof, where a low window, kept always open by Killigrew, allowed the worst of the smell to be wafted away. The increasing size of the badger and its consequent fierceness were likely to make its ultimate retention impossible; even now, a mere ball of striped fluff, it bit savagely whenever it was handled.

Badgers, which are often erroneously supposed to be nearly extinct in England, swarm over Cornwall, so that Killigrew's specimen did not enjoy any special distinction as a rarity, save in its capacity as a "pet." They are, however, very difficult to catch, being strong and cunning and armed with terrific teeth and claws, and Killigrew was passionately attached to his unyielding prisoner, not so much for its own sake as for what it represented for him—outlawry, romance, the touch of the wild which glorified life. Not on the first day was Ishmael accounted worthy, or even safe, as a repository for this secret, but when Killigrew did show it him, Ishmael rose in importance through his intimate knowledge of badgers and their ways.

"Wouldn't He let you keep it if He knew?" asked Ishmael, when, finger and thumb round its neck and another finger firmly gripping under a forepaw, he had held and admired the spitting animal.

"Rather not. We're not allowed to keep anything, though they make us sweat across the moor what they call 'observing the animal creation in its own haunts.' They like one to grind over beastesses and butterflies and suchlike."

"I know a lot about them," boasted Ishmael.

"Then you'd better keep your mouth shut about it, that's all I can say, or the fellows will think you're a prig. It was all right when it was started because the fellows were keen on it themselves, but then the masters took it up, and of course we had to drop it. We're off bugs in this shop."

Ishmael digested in silence the profundity of the point of view thus presented to him, and, according to his habit, quickly made it part of his practice. For his first weeks at school he kept very silent, absorbing its traditions and the unwritten laws made by the boys themselves, on the nice observance of which hung respect and popularity.

The Grammar School of St. Renny was an old-fashioned affair even for those days, but it had a certain name in a quiet way. It was run on classical lines, Greek and Latin being considered the only two subjects worth a gentleman's attention. Botany and entomology were the unofficial subjects that had won the school its name, but Ishmael soon found that to show any keenness for these two pursuits was to class yourself a prig. The robuster natures preferred rod and line, or line only, in the waters of Bolowen Pool to any dalliance with stink-pots and specimen cases. Like far greater schools, it was really run by the traditions evolved by the boys. There were certain things that were the thing and certain other things that were not the thing, and these varied occasionally. One term you simply had to wear a dark blue-and-white tie for going into the town and bear's grease your hair; another term a certain slovenliness in dress was the thing. You dismissed all womenkind as trivial and useless, but you were in love with the doctor's daughter, a stately, full-blown damsel who floated, so to speak, up the church upon the swaying bubble of her crinoline every Sunday morning, and sat, sunk to the waist in the swelling waves of silk, worshipped by a row of eyes from the school pew.

During the Sunday promenade around the churchyard—an unchanging ritual—you manoeuvred to be the one of the couple passing her as she came up the short path that bisected the circular one where you were marching. The two boys who were leading had the advantage of being able to set the pace more or less, but often they miscalculated the time of her appearance, and then some other couple, by a judicious lagging for a moment or a sudden quickening, achieved the meeting that after all was no more than a furtive interchange of glances, supercilious or almost-smiling on her part, according to her mood and the boy that encountered it. None of the boys ever met the damsel in any other way, except sometimes at a select party; but this adoration was a cult, though a purely academic one, so to speak. The true goddess of the school was far otherwise, as Ishmael was to find.

Another feature of life at St. Renny was the weekly market-day. It was forbidden to go into the town, it being placed out of bounds for the occasion, and therefore to slip out and drink cider at the corner shop and come back with your pockets stuffed with buns and solid country sweets of gaudy hues was a deed that placed you high in the respect of your fellows. Ishmael achieved this once as a matter of form, and then, having no real interest in it, turned his attention to other matters. On ordinary days the boys had a very real freedom, only limited by the hour at which they must return, and Ishmael and Killigrew nearly always took their rods and spent the half-holidays at Bolowen Pool, rarely catching anything, for the trout were abnormally shy; but Ishmael at least had the true fisherman's temperament, and was content to sit all day at one end of a rod and line even without a fish at the other. As for Killigrew, he was soon following where Ishmael led, and would have gone bug-hunting with him had he so decreed, though he felt relieved that Ishmael had cast such things aside.

Ishmael was casting aside much these days. He was at that expanding age which accepts what it is taught as good, but thinks it fine to throw it over. Later comes the age of thinking for oneself and concluding that whatever one has been taught is bad. Curiously enough the outward result of the two states is the same. Only later comes the period of judicious sifting, and by then characteristics, tastes, habits, have unwittingly formed such bias that true poise is almost unattainable. Ishmael's root-ideas were unchanged, but he conformed to all the fads of the school, even, as he became more of a personage, adding to them, for his inborn dread of ridicule prevented him from being an iconoclast and his bent for dominance made some action, one way or the other, necessary. The Parson sank more and more into the background, but there came over the rim of his world a new figure that, oddly enough, filled much the same place.

On that first night at school, when the Parson had gone back home and Ishmael lay in a narrow little bed, one of ten such, in the darkened dormitory, he shed no tears for the Parson, or for his old companions, nor yet for the strangeness of the new world where he might, in the reaction from the first excitement, have been feeling lonely. He was too solidly set on getting all that was possible out of his fresh life. But in his most curious searchings into the likely future as he lay that night for an hour or so upon a wakeful pillow, he did not picture anything as delightful as, in after years, he was to realise Hilaria Eliot had been for those boys who at the time so casually and unthinkingly enjoyed her wayward companionship.