Читать книгу Jeremy at Crale - Hugh Seymour Walpole - Страница 7

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1

Upon that same afternoon, at exactly four of the clock, the Upper Fourth were sitting awaiting the entrance of their form-master, Mr. Parlow.

This was the first occasion of their meeting, because on the first morning of the winter term the School divided into their various Houses and did its best with a General Knowledge paper.

At the beginning of every winter term every form was born anew. Boys who had been prominent leaders during the last year had now moved into other worlds; dunces who had kicked their heels for so many months on back benches were now surprisingly promoted into the middle of the room. The new and untried quality was now, nervously erect, against the back wall and there they would remain until the term's close.

Jeremy Cole had his place between Askwith of Bunt's and Cumberlege of Frost's. As for weeks and weeks these two were to be his neighbours, their habits, characteristics and personalities were of some importance to him. Askwith he had never seen before and he decided at once that he didn't like him. He was a pale, freckled boy, with an ingratiating manner. Cumberlege was thick and stocky like himself; he knew him. Not a bad footballer. Stupid. Destined very possibly to play during the term the rôle of Form fool. Parlow, Jeremy had heard, always selected someone for that office.

Four desks away was Staire, looking, Jeremy considered, as "sidey" as possible. Half-way down the room, lounging back against the desk behind him, was big Halleran, the Fives Captain. Some thirty boys in all.

There was a church-time hush as the door opened and Parlow entered. Parlow was a big, stout, clean-shaven man with a red face. His reputation on the whole was a good one. There was nothing against him save that he was said to make favourites, but that was considered on the whole rather human of him. He wasn't one of those "sarcastic devils" like Fynes or Mortimer. He was interested in games, gave decent teas with plenty of food, and sometimes in form read out of good books like Kipling and Haggard. He had the deuce of a temper, and at times could be heard shouting right across Coulter's. He swore finely and had a sense of humour. All this Jeremy had gathered from others.

He came in, settled his bulky form behind his desk and looked about him.

"Well, yes," he said, staring at them.

"New boys stand up!" he commanded.

They stood up.

"A nice lot! A nice, bright-looking lot!"

The senior boys in the form were turning round and looking at them. Jeremy wished that he were taller. His head came only just above his desk.

"Do I know any of you?"

He stared at them one by one.

"I know you, Cole. And you, Staire. Have you come here to work or play games?"

Neither answered.

"Halleran, you tell them. What do you come here for?"

Everyone giggled. Halleran mumbled in his throat.

"Well, Cole. Which is it to be?"

"Please, sir, both," said Jeremy gulping.

"Hum, yes. . . . As this is a football term I shall keep my eyes on you. Sorry cricket is finished for the time being, Staire?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're a bright-looking boy." He fixed his large, round, child-like eyes upon Cumberlege. "What's your name?"

"Please, sir, Cumberlege, sir."

"Yes. I hope you're smarter than you look!"

A relieved laugh from the form at this. The fool for the term had been appointed.

"Now, boys, listen to me. You've got to work. When I say work, I mean exactly that--work. Great fun pretending to work; but you won't find it easy to catch me out. You can try, if you like, but I really advise you not to. Besides, work's worth while. You may think it isn't. Games much more important, the only thing, in fact, you come to school for. But it isn't the only thing. It's quite possible to do both, and as far as being useful in the world afterwards goes work will get you on quite as well as games will. But that isn't the point just now. I'm here to see that you do work and I mean to do it. That's all. Now get to it!"

And they got to it.

That hour was history. Period James II and William and Mary. Parlow had a way with him of making these people live. He read to them part of Macaulay's death of Charles II. Then he told them what he thought about James II, told them very succinctly, not mincing his words. He told them something of the period--read a little Pepys and a little Evelyn. The hour was over almost before it had begun.

Outside, on the way up to the French class, Halleran stopped Jeremy.

"Hullo, kid."

"Hullo," said Jeremy, dreadfully embarrassed.

"You've got a chance of being School Half this term."

"Have I?"

"Yes, you have; and I'll damned well give you a damned good hiding if you miss it!"

"Thanks," said Jeremy, terribly pleased.

Going upstairs Jeremy found himself next to Staire. It was embarrassing for both of them, but Staire was, of course, complete master of the situation.

"Hullo, Cole!"

"Hullo, Staire!"

"Had good hols?"

"Yes, thanks."

Staire spoke airily, superbly, as a country gentleman might unbend graciously to one of his villagers, and Jeremy hated him for it.

"So did I. We went to Dieppe."

"Decent paddling there, wasn't there?" said Jeremy, and then ran swiftly upstairs.

Perhaps Staire had meant the advance as an offer of truce, but if he had, why had he spoken as though he were the King of England? Who was he, anyway? Just because his father was a baronet. Anyone could be a baronet these days. And an odd wave of hot affection for his own father came over him, his own father of whom he was not proud, with whom he was always at odds. But he'd rather have him than Staire's father. He'd show Staire. . . .

But M. Forain awaited him. M. Forain and the first chapter of "Tartarin."

2

By general agreement the best hours of the winter term were those that followed Last School and preceded First Prep.

Last School was over at six, First Prep. was at eight. Two glorious, fuggy, stuffing, guzzling, fighting hours.

They had been fine enough in the days before a Study, but now! Now, when you need no longer have tea in the Dining Hall with all the Lower School of the House; when you could make your own toast, brew your own tea, dig into your own jam, slap on your own potted meat; when, toast in one hand, tea in the other, you could, uninterrupted by the vulgar mob, devour "Monte Cristo"; when you could listen to the rabble that kicked and pushed against the skirting of the wall and be safe and preserved against their vulgarity; when you could hear the gas so cosily hissing and the small (very small) fire so intimately spitting; when, if guests intruded upon you, you could either kick them out (good for warming the blood), or invite them in with all the courtesy of the perfect host; when, hearing that long wailing cry of "Fag!" go echoing down the passage, you need no longer listen save for the luxurious memory of those old dead and vanished days of serfdom; when, if the storms were blowing up from the sea, you could hear the rain as it lashed the window panes and could fancy with what white fury the waves were now hurling themselves over the rocks far below; when you could gorge and gorge and gorge adding strawberry jam to the next best butter and sardines to the strawberry jam and Dundee cake to the sardines and chicken and ham potted meat to the Dundee cake; when you could hear the old school clock striking the quarters and someone singing in strident discordance and someone else mournfully practising the fiddle; and then again the grasping fingers of the wind upon the pane--ah, these were hours, blessed, noble, care-free hours!

Jeremy had the capacity beyond most mortal humans of savouring the full enjoyment of the immediate moment. When he was happy he was tremendously happy. He remembered not past unhappinesses, nor the threats of the future overhanging hours. For him there were no future hours. He sunk his whole weight deep, deep down into the present and there wallowed.

It was not "Monte Cristo" that he was at the moment reading, but a story called "Kronstadt," by that glorious author of "The Iron Pirate," Mr. Max Pemberton. It was a story about that fascinating country Russia with its snows and knouts, its spies and Siberia. It concerned a lovely English governess who had an unfortunate taste for abstracting private documents of the highest military importance. Jeremy thought her splendid but tiresome. He came to the end of the chapter. He pulled himself up out of Russia and surveyed the little room with an intense, proprietary pleasure.

Gauntlet was absent. Marlowe was bending over his beautiful bureau absorbed in a book.

The long, spiny body, the hunched shoulders, protruding ears, intrigued Jeremy. He threw a French grammar at them. Marlowe's mild, bespectacled sheep-face turned towards him.

"I say--you're always reading. What'll you do when there aren't any books left?"

Marlowe giggled, his silly irritating giggle.

"There'll always be books," he said.

"Yes, but don't you ever want to do anything else?"

"Else than what?"

"Read."

Marlowe blinked behind his glasses; "I want to write."

"Write what?"

"Write stories. . . . I'm in the middle of one now. . . ." Then suddenly perceiving the dangerous nature of his confidence: "Oh, I say, Cole, you won't tell anyone, will you?"

"No, I won't tell anyone. Let's see it."

Marlowe, greatly agitated, dug deep into the bureau and produced a bundle of dirty-looking papers. Jeremy took them gingerly. On the outside page in very uneven, printed letters stood:

ARNADO THE FEARLESS

A ROMANCE

OF THE DAYS OF

GUY FAWKES

There were many pages.

"Golly!" said Jeremy. "Did you write all this?"

"Yes," said Marlowe.

"Can I read it?"

"Yes, if you like." Then he urged again, "You won't tell anyone, will you? They'd rag me frightfully if they knew."

"No. Didn't I say I wouldn't? Fancy your writing all that! Where do you get it from?"

"I don't know," said Marlowe. "It just comes."

Marlowe took back his precious papers and hid them again in the desk.

Jeremy regarded him with a new interest.

"Don't you ever want to play games?"

"I hate games."

"You'll get ill one day and die," said Jeremy seriously, "if you don't play games."

"I don't care," said Marlowe defiantly; "I'd rather die than play football."

"Why are you such an ass?" inquired Jeremy. "Chaps just can't help kicking you. I don't mind you, but I want to kick you often. You look such a fool."

"Yes, I know I do," said Marlowe. "But I won't be one always. I'll be remembered when everyone here will be forgotten."

"Perhaps you will," said Jeremy reflectively, "if you can write all that stuff. But it's not much use being remembered after you're dead, if you're kicked all the time you're alive."

"Yes, it is!" said Marlowe ardently. "Every great writer's been bullied and neglected first. You're having your time now. I'll have mine later on."

"Good heavens!" said Jeremy. "Do you think you're a great writer?"

"I'm not now," answered Marlowe modestly; "but I will be later."

Here was strange food for thought. The despised and rejected Marlowe considered himself a great swell.

He was aware with a suddenness that really startled him that when you had settled for yourself that someone was an ass, the matter was not, in truth, finally decided. The ass might have quite another opinion; and, in reverse, when you thought yourself splendid, someone else might think you an ass!

All this was interesting. In truth Jeremy was greatly intrigued by the discovery that Marlowe was a writer. There was a side of himself of which he never consciously thought, but a side of which he was occasionally most sharply aware--something in him of which he was exceedingly shy, and concerning which he would speak to no one in the world, not to Uncle Samuel, not even to himself. This was the part of him that loved the woods round Polchester, the Cathedral where once he had seen the Black Bishop, the Sea Captain in whose company he had once almost absconded, Rafiel by the sea, the farm where, as small children, they had stayed in the summer; and, when it came to small things, horse-chestnuts, skies of red and orange, trees blown by the wind, Orange Street shining after rain, fires of autumn leaves, spring flowers, his elder sister dressed for a party, his mother's rings, books in shining bindings, running without clothes on the sands beyond Rafiel and so on and so on . . . all the things that Uncle Samuel alone in the family understood.

As he had grown and the school life had slowly, relentlessly moulded him, Jeremy had become more and more ashamed of these inner stirrings. No one at school but would rag him unmercifully were they known. His most intimate friend, Jumbo Payne, had never experienced these excitements. Jeremy felt now that they were something "soppy," "girlish," weak and feeble. He would have killed them and he could, but, in spite of himself, at the oddest moments, when he least expected them, up they would spring, stirring him altogether in spite of himself.

And now Sheep Marlowe, of all people, had moved him again! To write a real book, to write pages and pages, to give it a name, to invent it all out of your head. . . . He sat there balancing on his chair, staring at that bent, spiny back, those protruding ears. To be remembered after the rest were forgotten! It was a rum world. Sheep to be remembered! Sheep! A rum world! With a sigh back he turned to "Kronstadt."

3

A head was poked in through the door, McCormick.

"I say, Cole, Leeson wants to see you."

"Wants to see me?"

"Yes! Now! I've just been with him. He wants you now."

"Oh, lord! What's he want to see me about?"

"I don't know. Your bizz, not mine."

McCormick vanished.

Leeson was not popular with his House. He was nicknamed "Paddy" because he went round the dormitories after lights were out to see whether things were as they should be, and wore soft slippers for the occasion.

Jeremy had seen but little of him during these three years. He had been "whacked" by him twice, given tea by Mrs. Leeson three times and exhorted by Leeson once a week during a whole term before Confirmation. It was the last of these that had caused Jeremy's very soul to squirm. He didn't mind so much that he should be rebuked for forgetting his Catechism, but when it came to asking him intimate questions about "the Purity of his Body"--a phrase that meant nothing to him hidden as it was beneath Leeson's chaste reticences but, when interpreted afterwards by friends and companions, meant all kinds of things--from that moment Jeremy had detested Leeson.

He went now most reluctantly. What did Paddy want to badger him for on the very first day of term? What had he done wrong already? He threw his mind over the events of last night and to-day and could discover no crime. There had been too many things to do and think about. There had been no time for mischief. And why snatch from him his Study hour--at the very moment too when the governess had been discovered thieving by her lover? A rotten shame, and one more count against Leeson.

He slouched through the noisy school building into the chaste, deadened privacy of Leeson's quarters. He knocked on Leeson's door, then entered.

Leeson was alone, his long, black, clerical form bent over his table, letter-writing. Leeson was one of those tall, blue-black clergymen, who look like an advertisement for Waterman Co.'s fountain pens. His Study had large photographs of Rome and Athens, busts of Sophocles and Julius Cæsar, and many rows of theological volumes.

Jeremy waited.

Leeson looked up. "Ah, Cole, I wanted to speak to you."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy.

"Had good holidays?"

"Yes, sir, thank you."

"People all well?"

"Yes, sir, thank you."

"Glad to be back?"

"Yes, sir, thank you."

There was a pause.

"Well, let me see--" Leeson stood now in front of the fire-place, his long, thin, black legs spread wide.

"You're in a Study this term?"

"Yes, sir."

"With--let me see--with whom?"

"Gauntlet Major and Marlowe, sir."

"Ah, yes. Gauntlet Major and Marlowe. Yes. Quite. You got your House Fifteen last winter, I think?"

"Second House, sir."

"Ah, yes. You've got a good chance for First House this year?"

"Yes, sir, I think so, sir."

"I'm informed that they may even play you for the School."

Jeremy's heart beat. He said nothing.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen and three-quarters."

"Ah, yes. Let me see. You're small for your age."

"Yes, sir."

Leeson's voice suddenly changed. There was a most surprising twinkle in his eye. Jeremy had never seen it there before.

"How do you like this school, Cole?"

"Like it, sir?"

"Yes, are you happy here?"

"Very happy, thank you, sir."

"Proud of the School?"

Jeremy was uncomfortable and rubbed his boots together. "I suppose so, sir, I hadn't thought of it exactly."

"Quite, quite." Leeson's voice was friendly, familiar, intimate. "Well, it's time you did. You're beginning to have influence. And especially in the House. Do you like the House?"

"Oh, it's all right, sir."

"I see--no especial feelings about it. Naturally. Well, it's time you did have some special feelings about it. And how do you feel about me?"

This was awful. Jeremy hung his head and muttered.

"Exactly. You think me a tiresome ass. Quite. It's natural that you should think so and even right that you should, during your first years here. Things work more easily that way."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy, being apparently expected to say something.

"But I'm not a tiresome ass: at least, it isn't any longer a good thing that you should think me so. And I'll tell you why. Because from now on, you and I have got to work to some extent together and there's no hope of our doing that if we don't see one another sympathetically."

"No, sir," said Jeremy.

"You see, it's like this. During your first year or two at a school of this sort you're passive--just stuff for the school to work on. The school catches you up like a sausage-machine and turns you from the conceited little pup that you were when you left your private into something else--something that it can use both for itself and for something wider and deeper than itself."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy, looking at Julius Cæsar in a kind of trance.

"But then the day comes," Leeson went on, "when it's time for you to do something! You've got to come in and add something. From that moment the future of the school will depend to a certain extent on what you are, and everything you do will affect its future.

"This school, which has been going on, in one sort of way or another, ever since the Eleventh Century, on this very spot, hasn't made itself; it's been made by the boys who have cared for it and have done something for it. Its influence is increasing, and so your influence through it is increasing. People are always wanting to be immortal. Well, here's as good a chance for immortality as I know. Do something decent for this school and you do something decent for yourself, for England and for everyone who comes after you here. That's worth while, it seems to me."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy.

"Yes, and there's more than that in it," Leeson went on. "There's your immediate influence here in this House. Now this House mayn't seem much to you. It isn't more than fifty years old. It's ugly to look at. It isn't even very architecturally sound. It's seemed to you, so far, just a place to rag in, eat and sleep in. But if you can do something for the School, far more can you do something for the House. Here your influence is immediate. Everyone knows you. Everyone watches you. The smaller boys admire you because you're a good footballer. From now on you're going to matter a lot to this House, one way or the other, and it's just as well that you should know it."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy.

"That's why you've got to understand me a little. There are many boys I wouldn't talk to like this. It would make them priggish and self-conscious. They'd think themselves potential Napoleons, or, worse still, little angels. But I've no fear of your taking yourself too seriously; in fact, the danger is just the other way. I fancy, for instance, this evening that you've heard hardly a word that I've been saying. All the same it will stick in your head more than you imagine."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy.

"And if I've been studying you I want you to pay me the compliment of studying me in return a little. I know what you think of me. Old 'Paddy' Leeson who goes round the dormitories after dark in soft slippers. Well, that may or may not be true. Anyway, that isn't the whole truth about me. I love this House better than I've ever loved anything in my life except my wife. I've made plenty of mistakes and will make plenty more, but I shall make less if you help me. I'm not proposing any change in our relations except this: that you should think of me as a human being, not a pious humbug; and that, secondly, you should realize that if in three years' time you leave this school without having done anything decent either for it or the House, you'll have a crime on your conscience. Yes. Well . . . Come and see me when you want to."

"Yes, sir," said Jeremy.

Leeson held out his hand. Jeremy shook it and shuffled out of the room.

4

Back in his part of the house he shook his head as a dog does when he comes out of the water. He walked out into Coulter's. The stars were coming out in their myriads. It was an evening of marvellous softness. All the sounds came gently, the very rhythmic murmur of the sea, the muffled cries of boys behind the walls, the distant banging of doors, the wheels of a cart crunching down the country road.

But Jeremy heard none of them. He stood staring out into the dusky playing fields, his hands plunged in his pockets. Had old Paddy been pulling his leg? Was this some plot to get him to do something pious, look after the new kids and report to Paddy when there was a dormitory feast? Or was it straight? What was it Paddy had said? Jeremy couldn't remember a word except something about influence and helping the House. . . . Oh, yes, and looking on Paddy as a human being! That was rum.

He'd have to ask Jumbo about it. Whether Paddy was on the straight or no. . . .

But all this about the School. Of course he liked the School. Didn't he, if there was a match on, shout for the School until he was blue in the face? Wouldn't he rather be here than any old Eton or Harrow or Rugby? Of course he would. All the same . . . He felt a burden upon him. He wasn't as free as he had been. He was under some sort of responsibility, but what responsibility? He didn't know.

But Leeson wasn't quite the ass he'd thought him. Maybe it was only a tale that he came round the dormitories in soft slippers. Rotten shame that chaps should say so if it wasn't true!

Golly, what a lot of stars!

He went slowly in.