Читать книгу "C" - Maurice Baring - Страница 10

Table of Contents

In his ninth year C. was sent to a private school. Lady Hengrave had been recommended an excellent school in Berkshire, where the boys were well taught and obtained scholarships at public schools. As C. was destined for the Navy, and had to pass what was considered a difficult examination to get into the Britannia, it was important that he should be well taught. But in the summer of C.'s ninth year the Headmaster at the Berkshire school died, the staff of the school split up, and the school came to an end. One of the masters started a school of his own near Oxford, taking with him one of the assistant masters; another, who, although the least intellectual, was considered to have the greater organising capacities, started a school near Brighton. Lady Hengrave, who had inspected the school and made the acquaintance of the masters, made up her mind that Mr. Forsyth, who had migrated to Brighton from the Berkshire school, was preferable, and C. was sent to the seaside school. There were only nine boys under Mr. Forsyth's charge during C.'s first term, and that was thought to be an advantage. Lady Hengrave thought the boys would get more attention, and consequently work harder. Mr. Forsyth was a brisk, breezy, rather burly man. He understood boys, knew how to manage them, and how to amuse them, but he was not a scholar in any sense, and he left the intellectual education of the boys to his staff. At the Berkshire school he had only taught the smallest boys the elements of French and arithmetic, as well as drawing and music to the whole school.

At the new school he took no classes at all, but contented himself with organising and pervading the whole, which he did very well. Indeed, if the acquiring of knowledge had been of no importance, "Forsyth's," as the school was called, would have been one of the best schools in England. The staff was not over large. Mr. Cartwright, who was practically Mr. Forsyth's partner, although they were not co-equal (Mr. Cartwright was called an assistant master), lived in the house and dealt with mathematics, modern languages, history and geography. His interests were purely athletic. He had been a Rugger blue at Oxford, and he looked upon work as an interruption which had to be borne patiently in the serious business of school life which was games.

Mr. Forsyth was unmarried, but Mr. Cartwright was married, and Mrs. Cartwright lived in the house, looked after the boys and played the part of matron.

Mrs. Cartwright came from the North; she was one of the many daughters of a well-to-do minister. She had a fuzzy, reddish fringe and a delicate, little, white freckled face, and a refined Glasgow intonation. She was kind to the boys, but took little interest in the school. Her heart was in the columns of the Queen newspaper and the Court Journal, and she sometimes read Modern Society in secret. She had a passion for the news of the world of fashion, and she followed the movements of every member of the Royal Family with enthralled interest. C., being the younger son of a peer, had great prestige in her eyes, and her only regret was that his sisters were not yet out, and that she could not read their names in the lists of guests at the balls and parties that were chronicled in the Morning Post.

Latin and Greek were taught by an anæmic, pale and bearded man with worn-out trousers and frayed linen, who came in from Brighton every day. Although his name was Porson he had only a superficial knowledge of the classics, and little authority over the boys.

Another visitor taught the boys English literature.

Music was encouraged, and the boys were also taught sketching in water colours and in oils. At the end of his first term C. took home a water colour of a mill which was supposed to be by his hand, but it had a grown-up Royal Academy quality which would have been surprising in the work of a boy of nine. Mr. Birch, the drawing master, wore a velvet jacket, and lived in a house furnished entirely with unsold Academy pictures, some of which had been hung. He always finished off the boys' pictures, feeling that it was more satisfactory to all concerned, which it was; for, although the parents must have known that the pictures were not their son's unaided work, they liked to think that progress had been made, and that some of the work was perhaps authentic. Some parents, indeed, bravely maintained the illusion that the sketches were entirely their boys' work.

The boys played Association football with a neighbouring school. They went twice a week to a gymnasium, where they learnt gymnastics. They went out riding on the Downs on ponies from a riding school. They attended a swimming bath once a week, and had swimming lessons. They had a thoroughly enjoyable life and learnt nothing. At the end of his first term C. went home for the holidays, taking with him a handsomely bound copy of Stories from Livy, a prize for modern languages. He took with him as well a report saying that he had been most satisfactory in every respect, and that he was making excellent progress in all subjects. He was, perhaps, a little weak in freehand drawing.

Lady Hengrave was delighted, but Fräulein Setzer shook her head after cross-examining C. about his German lessons, and came to the conclusion that he had not learnt much; for, although music at Forsyth's school was taught by a German, German was taught by Mr. Cartwright, who had never been to Germany, and who had the slightest acquaintance with the language. He could not construe the simplest German poem without the help of a translation.

When C. went back after his holidays, for his second term, the number of boys had increased; there were now fourteen, and before C. left the numbers increased to twenty-nine. Mr. Forsyth had joined the volunteers, and the boys were now drilled by a sergeant in a drill hall, were taught to form fours, and were sometimes, as a great treat, allowed to pull a string which let off a gun.

Athletic sports were the excitement during the Lent term, and C. won the hundred yards race in an open competition for various schools. He was tall for his age, and the committee were inclined to think that his reported age was incorrect. This was not the case. C. made friends with a boy called Arkright, who introduced him to the works of Harrison Ainsworth, and to Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop. He soon reached a position of importance in the school, and became the captain of the football eleven, but he never took to cricket, in spite of Mr. Cartwright's exhortations, and used, whenever he could, to go out sailing on the sea. This the boys were allowed to do; and, as C. was destined to be a sailor, the Headmaster thought it fitting and appropriate that he should get used to the sea as soon as possible and overcome an unfortunate tendency to sea-sickness.

When he learnt to swim, Mr. Forsyth said that the first step in his naval career had been reached, and he prophesied that C. would one day be an admiral. His reports became more and more glowing; and at the end of every term he took home more and more prizes, among others the works of Josephus, in two volumes, bound in red calf. He was nearly always at the top of his division, and both his father and mother were astonished at the apparent fertility of what they had considered to be a difficult and unprofitable soil. Nobody at home had any doubts about the situation except Fräulein Setzer, who had a shrewd suspicion that C. was learning very little, but she was too frightened of Lady Hengrave and too fond of C. to say anything.

C. had little aptitude for mathematics, and, although he had not in him the makings of a scholar, his mind responded to classical subjects, and he had been well grounded in French at home. Unfortunately, the teaching in Latin and Greek, and still more in modern languages, at Forsyth's was not only negatively inadequate, but positively harmful; and, instead of learning Latin, French and a little Greek, C. gradually forgot the Latin that he knew, and would have completely forgotten his French if Fräulein Setzer had not compelled him to talk French in the holidays. The reason that he was so easily first in his classes and won so many prizes was that the little knowledge he acquired was greater than what was picked up by the other boys, and in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed was king.

Apart from the work which formed the daily routine C. met with no stimulant which acted on his mind in any way in the teaching of his masters, or in his intercourse with them. He read the works of Henty and he discovered the genius of Rider Haggard, but, apart from that, the world of fancy was a closed book to him, for the lessons in English literature at Forsyth's were delivered by an expert in Pitman's shorthand, whose highest ideals were the most fluent and stereotyped form of journalese and the scrupulous avoidance of prepositions at the end of a sentence.

Mr. Forsyth used often to take the boys to the local theatre, and there C. made his first acquaintance with the more melodramatic and sentimental branches of the English drama. He saw a dramatised version of The House on the Marsh, and several other melodramas of the same nature. These plays sometimes renewed for him the nightmares of his childhood, but he did not confess the fact to anybody.

C. behaved fairly well during his schooldays. He did no work, but he gave no trouble. He ragged Mr. Porson during the classical hours, and burnt pills called Pharaoh's serpents during his class which, when lit, developed into brown coiling and rather nauseating snakes. He got on well with the Headmaster, and he was on amicable terms with Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright, but he took no interest in them. He was good at games but cared little for them, a fact which baffled Mr. Cartwright. He collected stamps and worked hard in the carpenter's shop with his friend, Arkright. Together they made a quantity of brackets and other ornamental pieces of furniture with a fret-saw. He made no other great friends, but the last two years of his private school life were enlivened by the arrival of his younger brother. He and Harry shared a room together, and fought over the bath religiously every day. The boys respected C., as he was easily the best football player and athlete at the school, and he was supposed to be the best scholar. During one of the summer terms C. went through an emotional experience. A French company came down to Brighton and gave a flying matinée at the Theatre Royal. The company was a scratch one gathered together round a star from the Paris Gymnase, named Fanny Talbot, who was French in spite of her English name. The play she appeared in was Le Maître des Forges, familiar to the public of London under the name of the Ironmaster. Fanny Talbot was an abrupt and rather violently emotional actress. But her sudden fame and instantaneous popularity were due to her great and unusual beauty. She had delicate, rippling, fair, cendré hair with natural golden lights in it, and mysterious brooding eyes, a statuesque presence and the expression of a somewhat peevish sphinx. Mr. Forsyth took the boys of the first division to see this play. He said it would be good for their French. He wanted to see the actress whom London had been raving about. As for C. he fell instantly and madly in love with Fanny Talbot, and the performance of the Ironmaster opened for him a door on to the kingdom of romance. He had no idea such beauty could exist, and in some way she reminded him of Leila, the heroine of his romance in Hamilton Gardens. He bought several photographs of her which he concealed, and he confided his passion to Arkright, who was sympathetic, but said it was a great pity she did not speak and act in English. For his part he preferred Violet Cameron.

With the help of Arkright--that is to say, aided by the advice of Arkright as far as the sentiments were concerned (for Arkright knew little French)--C. composed a letter to Miss Fanny Talbot, which, after many rough copies, drafts, alterations and emendations, finally read thus:--

Deux anglais élèves à l'école de Forsytes, Brighton, désirent mettre à vos pieds leur profounde admiration, aux pieds de Fanny Talbot, la plus grande actrice du monde et la plus belle entre toutes les belles. O prodige Incroyable!

La plus belle entre toutes les belles was a phrase that C. had once heard Mademoiselle Walter make use of, and the final apostrophe was a quotation from a speech in Racine's Athalie, which C. had known by heart for some years.

Miss Fanny Talbot answered the letter by sending a visiting card on which she wrote a civil phrase thanking her English friends for their kind appreciation. They tossed up as to who should own the card, for Arkright, although his passion for Fanny Talbot was less violent, collected autographs, and the personal autograph of so great a celebrity would be the flower of his collection. He won the toss, but most generously he insisted on C. keeping the autograph, for, as he said, "It's one thing for a chap to collect autographs and another to have a lifelong passion for a great actress, and, although I admire her very much, I do prefer Violet Cameron, both as an actress and a beauty." C. yielded to this argument, and hid the little visiting card in the same box which concealed four different photographs of Fanny Talbot, three of them in costume, and one of them en ville.

Arkright was an amateur of the theatrical life and knew a great many actors and actresses by name, as his parents took him to the play quite often during the holidays. Up till now C. had taken little interest in this taste, but now Fanny Talbot had changed all that, and C. took an interest in the stage for her sake, and read the theatrical news in the Daily Telegraph, in the hope of seeing her name. He even had a fight with Baily major because Baily slighted her. This is how the incident occurred. C. had bought a new photograph of Fanny Talbot and was showing it to an interested but critical group, with that desire of universal confirmation and that apprehension of a possible want of appreciation that an idol inspires.

"It's of course not a bit like her," he said apologetically, meaning that it was not nearly beautiful enough.

"That's a pity," said Baily major, "because if it had been she would have been rather good-looking."

The group tittered. Baily major was famous for his sarcasm.

"All right," said C., "we'll fight it out in the playroom."

And fight it out they did, with gloves and seconds. The first three rounds were indecisive. In the fourth round Baily major's nose bled and his face had grown very red. He was slightly the more powerful of the two, and neither of them were skilful boxers; but C. had behind him the fierce drive of his overwhelming passion for Fanny Talbot, and a raging desire to avenge her, so that in the fifth round, after a few wild swings, he managed to pound Baily major's head till the latter admitted defeat in tears. They shook hands, but before doing so C. demanded that Baily major should apologise for having slighted Fanny Talbot.

"I never said anything against her," Baily said between pants. "How could I know that you'd get so waxy over a photograph?"

"Well," said C., "Fanny Talbot is the most beautiful person and the greatest actress in the world, and I'll fight any one who says the contrary."

Nobody disputed the sentiment.

This was the most emotional experience C. had at his private school, but perhaps the school incident which impressed him the most, and which gave him the greatest cause for thought--an incident which changed him and shifted him to another centre, so to speak--was the following.

One afternoon towards the end of the summer term the first division were engaged in doing sums. Mr. Cartwright was out of the room. The sums in question were decimal fractions of an exasperating kind, and none of the boys, not even the best mathematicians, could cope successfully with all of them. Through the open window came the voices of a nigger party singing in the street and the smell of the sea, and the distant noise of a merry-go-round. It was a radiant afternoon towards the middle of July. The room was hot and stuffy; a few wasps buzzed along the window frames. The black arithmetic books seemed more than usually dismal, the ink in the ink pots of the wooden desks more choked with blotting paper and more stagnant than ever. The black steel pens seemed more than ever to have feelers as of some strange sea beast.

Suddenly C. voiced public opinion by saying out loud:--

"I shan't do another stroke of work."

"Nor shall I," said Baily major.

"Nor shall I," said every one else in chorus, and a feeling of exhilarating desperation pervaded the division. The boys shut their books and began making pellets with blotting paper and flipping them at each other. The room began soon to hum with noise.

Some one dropped a book. Some one else banged down the lid of a desk. One boy threw a book across the room. The noise almost grew into a hubbub.

Presently Mr. Cartwright swept into the room and shut the door with a bang. A deadly stillness ensued, and immediately all the boys automatically closed their desks, took their pens, and went on tackling their decimal fractions in the most docile manner imaginable--all of them except C., who kept his word and did not go on with his work, and did not even open his book.

"Bramsley major, why aren't you working?" said Mr. Cartwright to C.

"I can't do these sums, Sir," said C.

"Rubbish," said Mr. Cartwright good-humouredly, "try again."

C. said nothing, but remained looking obstinately in front of him, his book still closed, his pen idle.

"Bramsley major," said Mr. Cartwright, "go to bed at once!"

C. walked off to bed, but he had kept his promise and had not done another stroke of work more that day, and as he lay in bed supperless that night, he dimly pondered long over the cowardice of human nature: the secret of corporate action, the mystery of people not being able to combine, the brief nature of revolutions, and the subjugation of the majority by a minority of one. Puzzling questions all of them, and destined to recur and occur to him often in after life.