Читать книгу Jeremy at Crale - Hugh Seymour Walpole - Страница 5

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1

Young Cole, quivering with pride, surveyed the room.

So, at last, was one of his deepest ambitions realized.

It was not, when you looked at it, a very large room. If, as was the way with many of the other Studies, it had had a table in the middle of it, there would have been precious little space in which to move. But he and Gauntlet Ma, almost at once after their arrival last night, had come to an agreement about this. They would have their own tables in their own corners, leaving the middle of the room free--and Marlowe could lump it.

Ma Bender had found two small (and exceedingly dirty) tables, and the only thing that remained was to toss for the window. They had tossed and Cole had won. Marlowe, of course, had the dark corner near the door.

Young Jeremy Cole didn't dare to think what his feelings would have been had he lost that toss. He wanted that window terribly--nobody in the world would ever know how badly--and for once in a way he had been successful. "For once in a way," because he always lost the toss at everything.

He was alone in the room at last (he had hurried here directly after Third School) and his intention was to arrange his table before anyone came in. He saw that Gauntlet had already arranged his, that from somewhere or another he had procured a dark blue cloth and a smart-looking writing-case.

Then, turning with a shock of surprise, he discovered that that young pip-squeak Marlowe had arranged his--and what an arrangement! There, in between the door and the farther corner, exactly fitting into its space, was one of those old writing bureaux, Eighteenth Century or something, with little drawers and twisted brass handles and of a dark, shiny colour that even Jeremy, who knew nothing whatever about furniture, recognized as handsome. Moreover, above this remarkable piece of furniture was a small, dark bookcase with a glass front, and inside this were books with shining and gleaming faces.

On the top of the bureau was a leather frame that contained the portrait of a thin, severe, military-looking gentleman; there was also a strange, brass figure of a squatting, malevolent-looking image--Chinese or Hindu, something Eastern.

All that Jeremy could say was "Gosh!"

When had young Marlowe produced these things? They weren't there last night. What side! If young Marlowe thought that this kind of swank . . .

But he turned, then, back to his own scratched and naked-seeming table. Large splashes of ink disfigured its surface. The few things that he had to arrange upon it--a dingy double frame containing his father and mother, a very faded green blotter, one of the school ink-wells and a photograph of the House Second XV of last season--how miserable these seemed!

He was aware of acute and poignant disappointment. And to think that he should be disappointed so soon when, during the whole of the preceding year, he had longed and longed for just this moment--when by simple right of brains, industry and personality he should be part owner of one of these Studies! And here he was, and it was dust-and-ashes in the mouth!

However, being Jeremy Cole, he very quickly recovered. What, after all, did it matter? It was all very well to make a show on the second day of the term, but what about the end of the first week? Everyone knew that you couldn't, unless you were in the Sixth, or a Games Captain, and had fags and a whole Study to yourself, keep anything decent for more than a day or two. What would Marlowe's old bureau look like after one or two rags? But were there to be any rags in here? He and Gauntlet had only last night sworn that there should not. They would keep the place decent and rag elsewhere. . . . Would they? He couldn't be sure. He wasn't even certain of himself. The very thought of young Marlowe's "side" made him want to kick that bureau about.

However, there was always the window. Jeremy turned to it and sighed with contentment. To the ordinary observer it might not have seemed a marvellous view. On the right was the great, towering wall of Upper School and, lower down, jutting out of this, the Upper Fives Courts. In the middle distance was a square, rather dingy space known as Coulter's Yard, and beyond Coulter's the path that bordered the Upper Playing fields. On the left were the walls, red-bricked and creeper-covered, of Jeremy's own House, Leeson's.

It is true that beyond the "Upper Games" (these were scarcely visible because they shelved so swiftly downhill) were the tops of trees, and beyond the trees again you could imagine the sea, knowing as you did that it was inevitably and eternally there.

But, on the whole, not much for the ordinary observer. Everything, however, for Jeremy.

By opening the window and craning his neck he could have a very good view of the Fives Court and, without craning at all, the whole gossip and turmoil of Coulter's was visible to him. Beyond all, most of the real life of the school--masters, visitors and every species of boy--passed at one time or another along the Gridiron, the path beyond Coulter's.

A marvellous and all-engrossing view. It was wonderful, when you came to consider it, that Gauntlet had submitted so tamely to the result of that significant toss.

But his table? Could he not do something about it? He would write home at once and demand that a table-cloth should be sent. And then what about Uncle Samuel's funny picture that had lain for three years, the period of Jeremy's sojourn at Crale, at the bottom of his play-box! Every holiday it had gone home with him and, as he had always insisted on himself packing and unpacking that sacred vessel, no one had ever discovered it.

To tell the truth he had been always ashamed of that picture. Who wouldn't be? It might be anything. Uncle Samuel said it was "Sheep in a Field," but who ever saw sheep like little red dots and lacking apparently both heads and tails?

Jeremy had too high an opinion of Uncle Samuel to leave it at home. Someone would discover it and then Uncle Samuel would be hurt, but no one in the school had ever seen it, and until now Jeremy had resolved that no one ever should.

However, it had a rather nice thin, gilt frame. People might appreciate that, and who was there in Jeremy's set who knew anything about pictures, anyway?

He turned once more to the window. It was a lovely, early autumn day. Soft, white clouds hovered lazily about a sky shining with sun. The tips of the trees against the horizon shaded in shadowy orange over a blue so faint that it was scarcely any colour at all.

But Jeremy didn't bother about the day. Someone was coming into the nearest Fives Court. It might be Bates, and wasn't that "Bunch" Halleran?

He was half out of the window, his legs hanging over the table. The door behind him opened, and turning impetuously, his career was nearly then and there terminated for ever.

Oh, all right; it was Gauntlet. The excitement of what he had to say carried him tumbling from the table to the floor, and the impetus of his movement almost carried him into Gauntlet's arms.

"I say, Spikes . . . Look here! Look at young Marlowe!"

Gauntlet turned round, and he said what Jeremy had said:

"Gosh!" Then he added, staring: "It's rather ripping!"

"Spikes" Gauntlet was a little taller than Jeremy and a great deal more handsome. He was, in fact, a good-looking small boy, and, for his tender years, something of a dandy. There are certain small boys who, through all the rough and tumble of their Jungle life, are never dishevelled or untidy. Their shining Eton collars are always clean, their cheeks are never inky, even their nails are grey rather than black--that is, if there are any nails. The knees of their trousers are never dusty, nor the seat thereof, and their boots never yawn, nor do their socks tumble in cascades below the ankle.

Such a boy was Gauntlet, and yet it would not be fair to say that he held himself apart. He was, on the whole, popular in spite of his neatness, although not so popular as his hard work in the direction of popularity entitled him to be.

For it was the desire and longing of his heart, soul and stomach to be popular. This was his only goal in life. He knew (and with surprising clarity for so young a boy) that as a scholar he would never be especially distinguished, nor would he ever play games supremely well. He was not rich, nor had his father a title (than small boys there exist in all the world no greater social snobs); but he had, he fancied, "charm." He was at heart extremely conceited, but he was already worldly-wise enough to know that to display your conceit before the world was the height of social folly. He was, in fact, very old for his years, being an only child and possessing an adoring mother.

He was an intriguer born. He owed allegiance to no one: others thought they were his friends and he liked them to think so; but, on his side, he gave his friendship to no one. He did not, indeed, know what the word meant. He cultivated the suppression of the emotions. He showed neither anger nor fear, neither greed nor cruelty. He was naturally something of a puzzle to the young wild animals in whose midst he lived.

This moving upward into the Study world had been an event of far greater excitement to him than to young Cole, but he had shown no excitement whatever.

He had feared, at the end of the summer term, that he would not obtain his promotion out of the Middle Fourth into the Upper Fourth. The Upper Fourth meant the Upper School. Every boy in Upper School had the share of a Study. He had, however, snatched his remove by the skin of his teeth, if so melodramatic a metaphor may be used in connexion with so controlled a personality.

When, at the end of the first week of the summer holidays, his father, a dyspeptic General, had received a letter informing him that his son had won his remove, young Gauntlet occupied many summer hours in wondering with whom his Study lot would be cast.

Only six Leeson boys could possibly have their remove--Staire, Cole, Marlowe, Perrin, Hackett and himself. Three of them would share a Study; the other three would be distributed among other Studies. The permutations and combinations were infinite.

Of these five boys two were superior--young Cole because of his football, and "Red" Staire because of--oh, because of a thousand things.

The rise to a Study was a rise out of the lower ranges of the Jungle--it was a half-way stage between serfdom and liberty. Now was the time when you could look around and judge who, chances being equal, would in two years' time be Leaders of the House and possibly Leaders of the School. Of course, not always. There were some stupid boys who would linger in the Lower School for years and yet, because of their sporting talents, would be "Bloods" and Leaders of Men--Halleran, for instance, who was still in the Upper Fourth although he had been Fives Captain for the last two years.

But when, as was the case with Stocky Cole and Red Staire, there were brains as well as games, you could foretell the future pretty accurately.

Well and good--no problem at all, had Stocky Cole and Red Staire been friends. But, as everyone in Lower School knew, they were, and had been for the past two years, the most determined enemies. They loathed one another. All the Lower School politics in Leeson's during the last year had hovered and hesitated around their feud. You could not possibly belong to both camps.

It looked, then, as though Fate had definitely decided that Gauntlet should henceforth belong to the Cole party. This decision about the Study had surely decided the matter. But not at all. Young Gauntlet was not to be rushed like that. Like Mr. Asquith, whose character he in no other way resembled, he would "wait and see." (These were days before that famous phrase had been created.)

Were his feelings to be consulted (and they never were, if he could avoid it), he liked Cole the better of the two. You couldn't help liking Stocky Cole. Almost everyone did except Staire. But was Cole likely to rise to the top? He was, from Gauntlet's point of view, in character extremely rum. He seemed to have no ambitions--with the one grand exception, of course--football. And even in football he didn't "work for position," as Gauntlet would have done. He never made up to anybody. Why, all last year he was Considine's fag, and into Considine's Study all the football men at one time or another penetrated. But young Cole had never sweated himself for any one of them more than for another. It was generally reported that Considine himself would have done a lot for Stocky had Stocky allowed him, but Stocky seemed to prefer his own inconsiderable friends, people of no account like Jumbo Payne. There was a case in point. Exactly. Who was Jumbo Payne? Nobody and Nothing. Moreover, would he ever be Anything or Anybody? Never. No good at games; no good at work. Nothing to say for himself, nothing to look at, no family, no money. Gauntlet simply couldn't understand making a friend of such a Nothing. Young Cole never seemed to look ahead--save only in football. He had been a trifle excited over the window question. But a window? What was a window? Gauntlet cared nothing for windows.

Now Red Staire was quite different. He made friends of the mighty. He was on good terms with almost everyone in authority. His father was a baronet of most ancient standing, and he had plenty of money. He might very possibly next summer get his First Cricket. He was at any rate certain of his House Cricket.

Yes, but next summer? That was a long way off and Staire was no good at football. This was Stocky Cole's term. Anything might happen before next summer.

2

The two boys made a striking contrast as they stood together staring at Marlowe's bureau.

Although they were almost of the same age--fifteen and three-quarters--Gauntlet seemed considerably the elder. His face was old for a boy, and this was in part because his skin was so smooth and fair that it was almost a mask.

He had great distinction, his nose and mouth and chin finely chiselled. His only disadvantage was that his eyes were of too pale a blue and his fair eyebrows too faint. His body was slim and neat, his hands and feet small and delicately made, and he carried himself with a fine balance, something almost arrogant but not quite.

Jeremy, on the other hand, was far too short for beauty and as broad as he was long. He was the thickest boy--thick everywhere, in shoulders and thigh and leg. His face was round and always in colour a brown-red like a well-nurtured pippin. His hair, which was dark, was innocent of parting and would stick up in a tuft at the back, do what he would to plaster it down. His mouth was large, and when he grinned (which was frequently), his whole face rumpled with amusement. He had a way of spreading his legs and swinging his short arms as though he were going to leap into space. His voice was rather thick and husky, deep for his age. His hands, which were large and strong, seemed for ever to be wanting to be doing something. But he was not restless. He often stood or sat for a long time without moving, his brow wrinkled as though he were thinking deeply. More often than not he was not thinking at all. But when he did think he was lost, and it often took him a long time to find himself again.

He suffered from spates of excitement, and when these were upon him he had to work them off at once; any difficulties with authority that had occurred during his three years at Crale had arisen from this.

He was of a most equable temper and was both too lazy and too amiable not to be on good terms with most of the world. But when he did take a grudge, it was hard to shake him out of it.

This feud with Staire had not in its origin any definite grudge. It had begun, perhaps, on Staire's side rather than on his own. In their first term at Crale there had been a game of football in which Cole had played well and Staire badly. Staire fancied that Jeremy laughed at him--which it is possible that Jeremy did. Staire then named Jeremy "The Farmer," and it was considered in Staire's set that young Cole was too plebeian for anything.

But it all went deeper than this. Jeremy hated Staire--and could find no true reason for it. There was nothing against Staire. He bullied occasionally, but so did Jeremy, in a thoughtless, exuberant fashion.

He had a very good opinion of himself, but so also had Jeremy--about certain things, at any rate. Staire had his following of toadies, but so had Jeremy--especially in the football term. Staire was generous, on the whole kindly and decent-minded. It was perhaps his "Style" that angered Jeremy. Staire "had a leg." In any gathering of boys anywhere you would notice him, while Jeremy, unless on the football field, was never noticeable.

Then Staire knew the world. He had been born in Vienna, where his father, now retired and an M.F.H. in Leicestershire, had been in the Diplomatic Service. He had travelled with his parents through most of Europe--and Jeremy, of course, had been nowhere.

But it went deeper than these things. It was as though there had been war between the two through countless ages, and both recognized this. And it was as though Fate intended them to be foes. Jeremy had often noticed the way in which they were pushed at one another. The feud, for the most part, made him miserable, although there were times when his battle-instinct yielded him a kind of fierce joy. But he would wish to be at peace with all men--something lazy in his character here.

Staire, on the other hand, loved it all. He despised Stocky Cole absolutely. Everything about him seemed to Staire's elegance contemptible--his thickness, awkwardness, childish "ragging" fits and the absurd people he chose as his friends. Only his football was not contemptible. But that was a kind of knack. Staire had a deep scorn of Rugby football because, himself, he played it so badly. Cricket now--there was a gentleman's game!

So they stood, the two of them.

3

"I think it's ripping," said Gauntlet. "I wonder if Marlowe would sell."

"I bet it cost a good bit," said Jeremy.

"Oh, I don't know. I expect Marlowe prigged it out of his aunt's bedroom or something. I'll offer him a quid."

"These old things," said Jeremy, standing, his legs spread and his hands in his pockets, and speaking with an air of profound wisdom, are "worth lots more than a quid."

"I bet it's a fake," said Gauntlet. "They fake everything nowadays. They stick bits of wood under manure-heaps and it comes out all brown, and then they punch little holes into the wood to make it worm-eaten. I bet it's a fake."

The door opened and Marlowe came in. He was the type of boy who is often caricatured in stories of public-school life. He was bony, ill-clothed and wore large spectacles. He had the look of an elderly and patient sheep. He resembled the sinister M. Verloc in that he seemed "to have wallowed all night on an unmade bed." He was a very quiet boy and suffered perpetual insult without complaint. He was known to the world at large as "The Sheep," and spent his day in an atmosphere of constantly recurring "Baas."

He did not, however, appear to be unhappy, unless possibly when the centre of a Lower School football "scrum." He hated all games, and read without cessation.

"Hullo, Marlowe!" Gauntlet said genially. "What a ripping desk!"

"Yes, isn't it?" said Marlowe, smiling faintly.

"Do you want it?" asked Gauntlet.

"Do I want it?" repeated Marlowe, bewildered.

"Yes, wouldn't you like to sell it?"

"Oh, no, thanks."

"I'll give you a quid for it."

"Oh, no, thanks."

"And you could have my table and everything on it."

"Oh, no, thanks. I wouldn't really. Thanks most awfully." Marlowe moved quickly and sat down in front of his precious prize as though to protect it.

"I bet it's a fake."

"Oh, no, it isn't."

"I bet it is."

"It isn't, really."

"You can see it is--anybody can."

"Oh, no, they can't. We've had it ever so long at home."

"I'll give you a quid for it."

"Oh, no, thanks."

"I will, really. I'll get it from Ma Bender to-night."

"Oh, no, thanks most awfully."

Gauntlet ceased. He would bide his time.

The passage outside the Study rocked with noise. Heavy bodies bumped against the thin woodwork, boots tramped as though they would burst the flooring, shouts and cries and yells--and then, bellowing above the babel: "Fag! Fag! Fag! Fag wanted!"

Boys were thronging Coulter's; through the open window the smack-smack of the fives balls could be heard against the stone, and the white clouds sailed quietly on, piling now into high cumuli above the trees, looking down on the fields, the lanes and the long sunlit plain to the sea.

There were twenty minutes before dinner. Jeremy thought he would go and see how the Upper Fields were looking.

He tumbled out into the passage. "Hullo, Stocky! Stocky! Stocky, you ass! . . ." But he pushed through, down the stairs, along the passage until he came to the Games Board.

No, First Game wasn't yet posted.

Terrible disappointment were he not playing! First Game at the beginning of the term consisted of two matches, Possibles v. Probables and Whites v. Colours. Four scrum-halves would be needed and he would be surely one of the four. Forsyte, Conrad, himself, and perhaps Haslewood. But what he wanted was that he should be in the Possibles v. Probables match. That was watched more closely than the other. Haseton, the scrum-half of last year's team, had left in the summer, but the danger was Forsyte who, although he hadn't been given his colours, had played for the team on several occasions last season and was unfortunately in Bunt's House, and Bunt, being Games Master, would naturally try to push him in.

"However," thought Jeremy, "of course I can't expect to play for the School this year." Nevertheless he did, in his secret heart, expect to. He was a better scrum-half than Forsyte, any day. And who else was there? Conrad was a funk and Haslewood was a three-quarter by rights.

He passed on into Coulter's, and forgot all about football. It was always so with him. He never thought about anything for five minutes together. Life was much too exciting. Thoughts came and went like flashing fish in a pool. Anyone who fancies that either Staire or football dominated him knows but little of a small boy's mind. Concentration! Concentration! Who ever knew a boy concentrate on anything save the matter immediately in hand? And a good thing too!

He stayed for a moment and watched Halleran in the knock-up fives game. He was in the same Form now as Halleran! That hero! Comic thought! Halleran was now in his element, his great clumsy body suddenly lithe and truly proportioned. You would not have thought that anyone so heavy could move so quickly, nor his sluggish, slothful countenance shine forth so intelligently!

Jeremy moved on to the Upper Fields. Behind was the grand, towering pile of the School, the Chapel in its centre, the sixteenth-century house, once part of a monastery, now the Head Master's house, and then the old buildings of different periods; but all achieving a marvellous and beautiful proportion, stretching out like wings, high and splendid on its hill above the sea, so that for many miles around it men would lift up their eyes and say "Aye, that's Crale. Best school in the country, I reckon."

But Jeremy was not thinking of the School. He was not even thinking of the Upper Fields. He had certainly no eyes for the tawny-crested trees. He did not even hear the clamp-clamp of the sea against the Raglan Rocks far below him.

He was hungry, frightfully, awfully hungry. He didn't care whether it was mutton and squashed flies. He didn't care what it was. He could eat anything. And after dinner he would go to Garrett's, the Tuck Shop, and would have four doughnuts, three bars of pink chocolate-cream and a stick of "Devona," this last warranted to endure, if sucked judiciously, for an hour at least. He turned to cross the Gridiron and--of all fearful things--ran straight into the legs and gown of "The Camel" himself!

The Reverend Charles Daime, for the last fifteen years head master of Crale, was six-foot-four, and bony. He bent a little from the shoulders and would throw his head forward as though he were searching for something. To the Lower School he was something remote, divine, God-like. They never saw him save in Chapel and on big public occasions. The legends concerning him were as many as the sands of the sea, as, for instance, that he ate monkeys for his breakfast, slept on two beds end to end because one was not long enough, and knew by heart every book that had ever been printed.

They knew, however, that he was the most successful Head Crale had ever possessed, and they worshipped him.

Jeremy choked. Folds of gown enveloped him. A cool, strong hand detached him.

"Well, Cole, going to knock me down?"

So the Camel knew who he was.

"Oh, no, sir!" Jeremy, crimson, giggled like an idiot.

"How's the football?"

"All right, sir."

"Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it." And the Camel swept on.

Golly! The Camel knew him! The Camel had asked about his football! The Camel knew him!

He stared like one in a dream. If he didn't play decently this term, well, he'd bury himself!

Yes, he would. He'd jolly well . . .

His hunger returned.