the high cross preparatory school

§ 1

from the time when he was christened until he was ten, lady charlotte sydenham remained only a figure in the remotest background of peter’s life. once or twice he saw her in the downstairs room at the ingle-nook with his aunts bristling defensively beside her, and once she came to the school, and each time she looked at him with a large, hard, hostile smile and said: “and ha-ow’s peter?” and then with a deepening disapproval: “ha-ow’s joan?” but that did not mean that lady charlotte had done with joan and peter, nor that she had relinquished in the slightest degree her claims to dominate their upbringing. she was just letting them grow up a little “according to their mother’s ideas, poor woman,” and biding her time. she wrote every now and then to aunts phyllis and phœbe, just to remind them of her authority, and she wrote two long and serious letters to oswald about what was to be done. he answered her briefly in such terms as: “let well alone. religion comes later.” oswald had never returned to england. he had been in uganda now for five long years, and her fear of him was dying down. she was beginning to think that perhaps he did not care very much for joan and peter. he had had blackwater fever again. perhaps he would never come home any more.

then in the years 1901 and 1902 she had been much occupied by a special campaign against various london socialists that had ended in a libel case. she was quite convinced that all socialists were extremely immoral people, she was greatly alarmed at the spread of socialism, and so she wrote and employed a secretary to write letters to a number of 143people marked “private and confidential,” warning them against this or that prominent socialist. in these she made various definite statements which, as her counsel vainly tried to argue, were not to be regarded as statements of fact so much as illustrations of the tendency of socialist teaching. she was tackled by a gentleman in a red necktie named bamshot, of impregnable virtue, in whom her free gift of “numerous illegitimate children” had evoked no gratitude. her efforts to have him “thoroughly cross-examined” produced no sympathy in either judge or jury. all men, she realized, are wicked and anxious to shield each other. she left the court with a passionate and almost uncontrollable desire to write more letters about bamshot and more, worse than ever, and with much nastier charges. and it was perhaps a subconscious effort to shift the pressure of this dangerous impulse that turned her mind to the state of spiritual neglect in which joan and peter were growing out of childhood.

a number of other minor causes moved her in the same direction. she had had a violent quarrel about the bill with the widow of an anglican clergyman who kept her favourite pension at bordighera; and she could still not forgive the establishment at pallanza that, two years before, had refused to dismiss its head-waiter for saying “vivent les boers!” in her hearing. she had been taking advice about a suitable and thoroughly comfortable substitute for these resorts, and meanwhile she had stayed on in england—until there were oysters on the table. lady charlotte sydenham had an unrefined appetite for oysters, and with oysters came a still less refined craving for dublin stout. it was an odd secret weakness understood only by her domestics, and noted only by a small circle of intimate friends.

“i don’t seem to fancy anything very much today, unwin,” lady charlotte used to say.

“i don’t know if you’d be tempted by a nice oyster or two, m’lady. they’re very pick-me-up things,” the faithful attendant would suggest. “it’s september now, and there’s an r in the month, so it’s safe to venture.”

“mm.”

“and if i might make so bold as to add a ’arf bottle of 144good guinness, m’lady. it’s a tonic. run down as you are.”

without oysters neither lady charlotte nor unwin would have considered stout a proper drink for a lady. and indeed it was not a proper drink for lady charlotte. a very little stout sufficed to derange her naturally delicate internal chemistry. upon the internal chemistry of lady charlotte her equanimity ultimately depended. there is wrath in stout....

then mr. grimes, who had never ceased to hope that considerable out-of-court activities might still be developed around these two little wards, had taken great pains to bring aunt phœbe’s collected papers of a stitchwoman (second series) and her little precious volume carmen naturæ before his client’s notice.

these books certainly made startling reading for lady charlotte. she had never seen the first “stitchwoman” papers, she knew nothing of swinburne, ruskin, carlyle, the decadents, nothing of the rich inspirations of the later victorian period, and so the almost luscious richness of aunt phœbe’s imagination, her florid verbiage, her note of sensuous defiance, burst almost devastatingly upon a mind that was habituated to the ordered passions and pearly greys of mrs. henry wood’s novels more leaves, good words, and the quiver.

“’with what measure ye mete,’” she read, “’so shall it be meted unto you again,’ and the standard that man has fixed for woman recoils now upon his head. which standard is it to be,—his or hers? no longer can we fight under two flags. wild oats, or the immaculate banner? question to be answered shrewdly, and according to whether we deem it is experience or escape we live for, now that we are out of eden footing it among the sturdy, exhilarating thistles. what will ye, my masters?—pallid man unstained, or seasoned woman? judgment hesitates. judgment may indeed hesitate. i, who sit here stitching, mark her hesitation, myself—observant. is it too bold a speculation that presently golden lassies as well as golden lads will sow their wild oats bravely on the slopes of life? is it too much to dream of that grave mother of a greater world, the woman of the 145future, glancing back from the glowing harvest of her life to some tall premonition by the wayside?—her one wild oat! the crown and seal of her education!”

“either she means nothing by that,” said lady charlotte, “or she means just sheer depravity. wild oat, indeed! really! to call it that! with joan on her hands already!”

and here again is a little poem from carmen naturæ, which also impressed lady charlotte very unfavourably:

the materialist sings

put by your tangled trinities

and let the atoms swing,

the merry magic atoms

that trace out everything.

these ancient gods are fantasies,

mere metaphors and names;

but i can feel the vortex ring

go singing through my veins.

no casket of a pallid ghost,

but all compact of thrills,

my body beats and throbs and lives,

my mighty atom wills.

“i don’t know what the world is coming to,” said lady charlotte. “in other times a woman who ventured to write such blasphemy would have been struck dead....”

“thrills again!” said lady charlotte, turning over the offending pages. “in a book that any one may read. exposing her thrills to any bagman who chooses to put down three and sixpence for the pleasure. imagine it, unwin!”

unwin did her best, assuming an earnest expression....

other contributory influences upon lady charlotte’s state of mind were her secret anxiety for the moral welfare of the realm now that queen victoria had given place to the notoriously lax edward vii., and the renascence of sectarian controversies in connexion with mr. balfour’s education act. anglicanism was rousing itself for a new struggle to keep hold of the nation’s children, the cecils and lord halifax were ranging wide and free with the educational dragnet, and lady charlotte was a part of the great system of 146anglicanism. the gale that blows the ships home, lifts the leaves.... but far more powerful than any of these causes was the death of a certain mr. pybus, who was unwin’s brother-in-law; he died through an operation undertaken by a plucky rather than highly educated general practitioner, to remove a neglected tumour. this left unwin’s sister in want of subsidies, and while unwin lay in bed one night puzzling over this family problem, it occurred to her that if her sister could get some little girl to mind——...

§ 2

mr. grimes was very helpful and sympathetic when lady charlotte consulted him. he repeated the advice he had given five years ago, that lady charlotte should not litigate but act, and so thrust upon the other parties the onus of litigation. she should obtain possession of the two children, put them into suitable schools—“i don’t see how we can put that by-blow into a school,” lady charlotte interpolated—and refuse to let the aunts know where they were until they consented to reasonable terms, to the proper religious education of the children, to their proper clothing, and to their separation. “directly we have the engagement of the misses stubland not to disturb the new arrangement,” said mr. grimes, “we shall have gained our point. i see no harm in letting the children rejoin their aunts for their holidays.”

“that woman may corrupt them at any time,” said lady charlotte.

“on that point we can watch and enquire. of course, the boy might stay at the school for the holiday times. there is a class of school which caters for that sort of thing. that we can see to later.”...

mr. grimes arranged all the details of the abduction of joan and peter with much tact and imagination. as a preliminary step he made lady charlotte write to aunt phœbe expressing her opinion that the time was now ripe to put the education of the children upon a rational footing. they were no longer little children, and it was no longer possible for them to go on as they were going. peter was born an 147english gentleman, and he ought to go to a good preparatory school for boys forthwith; joan’s destinies in life were different, but they were certainly destinies for which play-acting, running about with bare feet, and dressing like a little savage could be no sort of training. lady charlotte (mr. grimes made her say) had been hoping against hope that some suggestion for a change would come from the misses stubland. she could not hope against hope for ever. she must therefore request a conference, at which mr. grimes could be present, for a discussion of the new arrangements that were now urgently necessary. to this the misses stubland replied evasively and carelessly. in their reply mr. grimes, without resentment, detected the hand of mr. sycamore. they were willing to take part in a conference as soon as mr. oswald sydenham returned. they had reason to believe he was on his way to england now.

lady charlotte, still guided by mr. grimes, then assumed a more peremptory tone. she declared that in the interests of both children it was impossible for things to go on any longer as they had been going. already the boy was ten. the plea that nothing could be done until mr. sydenham returned was a mere delaying device. the boy ought to go to school forthwith. lady charlotte was extremely sorry that the misses stubland would not come to any agreement upon this urgent matter. she could not rest content with things in this state, and she would be obliged to consider what her course of action—for the time had come for her to take action—must be.

with the way thus cleared, mr. grimes set his forces in motion. “leave it to me, lady charlotte,” he said. “leave it to me.” a polite young man appeared one morning seated in a chariot of fire outside the road gate of the school of st. george and the venerable bede. he was in one of those strange and novel portents, a “motor-car.” this alone made him interesting and attractive, and it greatly impressed young winterbaum to discover that the visitor had come about joan and peter. young winterbaum went out to scrutinize the motor-car and its driver, and see if there was anything wrong about it. but it was difficult to underestimate.

148“it’s a petrol car,” he said. “belsize.... those are fine lamps.”

miss murgatroyd gathered that the guardians of joan and peter found it necessary to interview the children, and had sent the car to fetch them.

“miss stubland said nothing of this when i saw her the day before yesterday,” said miss murgatroyd. “we do not care for interruptions in the children’s work.”

the young man explained that the case was urgent. “lady charlotte has been called away. and she must see the children before she goes out of england.”

there was something very reassuring about the motor-car. they departed cheerfully to the ill-concealed envy and admiration of young winterbaum.

the young man had red hair, a white, freckled face, and a costly and remarkable made-up necktie of green plush. the expression of his pale blue eyes was apprehensive, and ever and again he blew. his efforts at conversation were fragmentary and unilluminating. “i got to take you for a long ride,” he said, seating himself between peter and joan. “a lovely long ride.”

“where?” said joan.

“you’ll see in a bit,” said the young man.

“we going to chastlands?” asked peter.

“no,” said the young man.

“then where are we going?” said peter.

“these here cars’ll do forty—fifty miles an hour,” said the young man, changing the subject.

in a little while they had passed beyond the limits of peter’s knowledge altogether, and were upon an unknown road. it was astonishing how the car devoured the road. you saw a corner a long way off and then immediately you were turning this corner. the car went as swiftly up the hills as down. it said “honk.” the trees and hedges flew by as if one was in a train, and behind we trailed a marvellous cloud of dust. the driver sat before us with his head sunken between his hunched-up shoulders; he never seemed to move; he was quite different from the swaying, noble coachman with the sun-red face, wearing a top hat with a 149waist and a broad brim, who sat erect and poised his whip and drove lady charlotte’s white horse.

§ 3

for a time the road ran undulating between high hedges and tall trees and through villages, and all along to the right of it were the steep, round-headed downs. then came a little town, and the automobile turned off into a valley that cut the downs across and opened out more and more, and then came heathery common and a town, and then lanes and many villages, flat meadows and flatter, poplars, and then another town with a bridge, and then across long levels of green a glimpse of the big tower of windsor castle. “this is runnymede, where magna carta was signed,” said the young man suddenly. “and that’s windsor, where the king lives—when he isn’t living somewhere else, as he usually does.... he’s a ’ot un is the king.... see the chap there sailing a boat?”

they went right into windsor and had a glimpse of the great gates of the castle and the round tower very near to them, and then they turned down a steep, narrow, paved street and so came into a district of little mean villas in rows and rows. and outside one of these the car stopped.

“here we are,” said the young man.

“where are we?” asked peter.

“where we get out,” said the young man. “time we had a feed.”

“dinnah,” said joan, with a bright expression, and prepared to descend.

a small, white-faced, anxious woman appeared at the door. she was wearing amiability as one wears a sabbath garment. moreover, she had a greyish-black dress that ended in a dingy, stiff buff frilling at the neck and wrists.

“you mrs. pybus?” asked the young man.

“i been expecting you a nour,” said mrs. pybus, acquiescing in the name. “is this the young lady and gentleman?”

that again was a question that needed no answer. the group halted awkwardly on the doorstep for a few seconds. “and this is miss joan?” said mrs. pybus, with a joyless 150smile. “i didn’t expect you to be ’arf yr’ size. and what a short dress they put you in! you must ’ave regular shot up. makes you what i call leggy....”

this again was poor as a conversational opening.

“’ow old might you be, dearie?” asked mrs. pybus.

“i’m eight,” said joan. “but i’ll be nine soon.”

the young man for inscrutable reasons found this funny. he guffawed. “she’s eight,” he said to the world at large; “but she’ll be nine soon. that’s good, that is!”

“if you’re spared, you shud say,” said mrs. pybus. “you’re a big eight, any’ow. ’ow old are you, dear?”

peter was disliking her quietly with his hands in his pockets. he paused for a moment, doubting whether he would answer to the name of “dear.” “ten,” he said.

“just ten?” asked the young man as if alert for humour.

peter nodded, and the young man was thwarted.

“i suppose you’ll be ready for something to eat,” said mrs. pybus. “’adn’t you better come in?”

they went in.

the room they entered was, perhaps, the most ordinary sort of room in england at that time, but it struck upon the observant minds of joan and peter as being strange and remarkable. they had never been before in an ordinary english living-room. it was a small, oblong room with a faint projection towards the street, as if it had attempted to develop a bow window and had lacked the strength to do so. on one side was a fireplace surmounted by a mantelshelf and an “overmantel,” an affair of walnut-wood with a number of patches of looking-glass and small brackets and niches on which were displayed an array of worthless objects made to suggest ornaments, small sham bronzes, shepherdesses, sham japanese fans, a disjointed german pipe and the like. in the midst of the mantelshelf stood a black marble clock insisting fixedly that the time was half-past seven, and the mantelshelf itself and the fireplace were “draped” with a very cheap figured muslin that one might well have supposed had never been to the wash except for the fact that its pattern was so manifestly washed out. the walls were papered with a florid pink wallpaper, and all the woodwork was painted a dirty brownish-yellow colour and “grained” 151so as to render the detection of dirt impossible. small as this room was there had been a strenuous and successful attempt to obliterate such floor space as it contained by an accumulation of useless furniture; there were flimsy things called whatnots in two of its corners, there was a bulky veneered mahogany chiffonier opposite the fireplace, and in the window two ferns and a rubber plant in wool-adorned pots died slowly upon a rickety table of bamboo. the walls had been a basis for much decorative activity, partly it would seem to conceal or minimize a mysterious skin disease that affected the wallpaper, but partly also for a mere perverse impulse towards litter. there were weak fret work brackets stuck up for their own sakes and more or less askew, and stouter brackets entrusted with the support of more “ornaments,” small bowls and a tea-pot that valiantly pretended they were things of beauty; there were crossed palm fans, there was a steel engraving of queen victoria giving the bible to a dusky potentate as the secret of england’s greatness; there was “the soul’s awakening,” two portraits of george and may, and a large but faded photograph of the sea front at scarborough in an oxford frame. a gas “chandelier” descended into the midst of this apartment, betraying a confused ornate disposition in its lines, and the obliteration of the floor space was completed by a number of black horsehair chairs and a large table, now “laid” with a worn and greyish-white cloth for a meal. such were the homes that the victorian age had evolved by the million in england, and to such nests did the common mind of the british resort when it wished to meditate upon the problems of its imperial destiny. joan and peter surveyed it open-mouthed.

the table was laid about a cruet as its central fact, a large, metallic edifice surmounted by a ring and bearing weary mustard, spiritless pepper, faded cayenne pepper, vinegar and mysteries in bottles. joan and peter were interested in this strange object and at the same time vaguely aware of something missing. what they missed were flowers; on this table there were no flowers. there was a cold joint, a white jug of beer and a glass jug of water, and pickles. “i got cold meat,” said mrs. pybus, “not being sure when you were coming.” she arranged her guests. but she did not 152immediately begin. she had had an idea. she regarded peter.

“now, peter,” she said, “let me ’ear you say grice.”

peter wondered.

“say grice, dearie.”

“grice,” said peter.

the young man with the red hair was convulsed with merriment. “that’s good,” he said. “that’s reely good. kids are amusing.”

“but i tole you to say grice,” said mrs. pybus, ruffled.

“i said it.”

the young man’s voice squeaked as he explained. “he doesn’t know ’ow to say grace,” he said. “never ’eard of it.”

“is it a catch?” asked peter.

the young man caught and restrained a fresh outburst of merriment with the back of his hand, and then explained again to mrs. pybus.

“’e’s a perfec’ little ’eathen,” said mrs. pybus. “i never did. they’ll teach you to say grice all right, my boy, before you’re very much older. mark my words.” and with a sort of businesslike reverence mrs. pybus gabbled her formula. then she proceeded to carve. as she carved she pursed her lips and frowned.

the cold meat was not bad, but the children ate fastidiously, and joan, after her fashion, left all her fat. this attracted the attention of mrs. pybus. “eat it up, dearie,” said mrs. pybus. “wiste not, want not.”

“i don’t eat fat.”

“but you must eat fat,” said mrs. pybus.

joan shook her head.

“we’ll ’ave to teach you to eat fat,” said mrs. pybus with a dangerous gentleness. for the time, however, the teaching was not insisted upon. “lovely bits! enough to feed a little dog,” said mrs. pybus, as she removed joan’s plate to make way for apple tart.

the conversation was intermittent. it was as if they waited for some further event. the young man with the red hair spoke of the great world of london and the funeral of lord salisbury.

153“’e was a great statesman, say what you like,” said the young man with red hair.

he also spoke of holbein’s attempt to swim the channel.

“they say ’e oils ’imself all over,” said the young man.

“lor’!” said mrs. pybus.

“it can’t be comfortable,” said the young man; “say what you like.”

presently the young man broke a silence by saying: “these here balkans seem to be giving trouble again.”

“troublesome lot they are,” said mrs. pybus.

“greeks and macedonians and turks and bulgarians and such. it fair makes my head spin, the lot of them. servians there are too, and montenegroes. too many of ’em altogether. cat and dog.”

“are them the same greeks that used to be so clever?” asked mrs. pybus.

“used to be,” said the young man with a kind of dark scorn, and suddenly began to pick his teeth with a pin.

“they can’t even speak their own language now—not properly. fair rotten,” the young man added.

he fascinated joan. she had never watched anything like him. but peter just hated him.

§ 4

upon this scene there presently appeared a new actor. he was preluded by a knocking at the door, he was ushered in by mrs. pybus who was opening and shutting her mouth in a state of breathless respect; he was received with the utmost deference by the young man with red hair. indeed, from the moment when his knocking was heard without, the manner and bearing of the red-haired young man underwent the most marvellous change. an agitated alacrity appeared in his manner; he stood up and moved nervously; by weak, neck-ward movements of his head he seemed to indicate he now regretted wearing such a bright green tie. the newcomer appeared in the doorway. he was a tall, grey-clad, fair gentleman, with a face that twitched and a hand that dandled in front of him. he grinned his teeth at the 154room. “so thassem,” he said, touching his teeth with his thumbnail.

he nodded confidentially to the red-haired young man without removing his eyes from joan and peter. he showed still more of his teeth and rattled his thumbnail along them. then he waved his hand over the table. “clear all this away,” he said, and sat down in the young man’s chair. mrs. pybus cleared away rapidly, assisted abjectly by the young man.

mr. grimes seemed to check off the two children. “you’re joan,” he said. “i needn’t bother about you. you’re provided for. peter. peter’s our business.”

he got out a pocket-book and pencil. “let’s look at you, peter. just come out here, will you?”

peter obeyed reluctantly and suspiciously.

“no stockings. don’t they wear stockings at that school of yours?”

“not when we don’t want them,” said peter. “no.”

“’mazes me you wear anything,” said mr. grimes. “s’pose it’ll come to that. let’s see your hat.”

“haven’t got a hat,” said peter. “wouldn’t wear it if i had.”

“wouldn’t you!” said mr. grimes. “h’m!”

“nice little handful,” said mr. grimes, and hummed. he produced a paper from the pocket-book and read it, rubbing his teeth with the point of his pencil.

“lersee whassor outfit we wan’,” said mr. grimes. “h’m.... h’m.... h’m....”

he stood up briskly. “well, young man, we must go out and get you some clothes and things. what’s called a school outfit. we’ll have to go in that motor-car again. quickest way. get your hat. but you haven’t got a hat.”

“me come too,” said joan.

“no. you can’t come to a tailor’s, and that’s where we’re going. little girls can’t come to tailors, you know,” said mr. grimes.

peter thought privately that mr. grimes was just the sort of beast who would take you to a tailor’s. well, he would stick it out. this couldn’t go on for ever. he allowed himself to be guided by mr. grimes to the door. he 155restrained an impulse to ask to be allowed to sit beside the driver. one doesn’t ask favours of beasts like grimes.

joan went to the window to watch the car and mr. grimes’ proceedings mistrustfully.

“i got a nice picture-book for you to look at,” said mrs. pybus, coming behind her. “don’t go standing and staring out of the window, dearie. it’s an idle thing to stare out of windows.”

joan had an unpleasant feeling that she had to comply with this. under the initiative of mrs. pybus she sat up to the table and permitted a large book to be opened in front of her, feigning attention. she kept her eye as much as possible on the window. she was aware of peter getting into the car with mr. grimes. there was a sudden buzzing of machinery, the slam of a door, and the automobile moved and vanished.

she gave a divided attention to the picture-book before her, which was really not properly a picture-book at all but an old bound volume of the illustrated london news full of wood engravings of royal processions and suchlike desiccated matter. it was a dusty, frowsty volume, damp-stained at the edges. she tried to be amused. but it was very grey and dull, and she felt strangely uneasy. every few minutes she would look up expecting to see the car back outside, but it did not return....

she heard the red-haired young man in the passage saying he thought he’d have to be getting round to the railway-station, and there was some point explained by mrs. pybus at great length and over and over again about the difference between the great western and the south western railway. the front door slammed after him at last, and mrs. pybus was audible returning to her kitchen.

presently she came and looked at joan with a thin, unreal smile on her white face.

“getting on all right with the pretty pictures, dearie?” she asked.

“when’s peter coming back?” asked joan.

“oh, not for a longish bit,” said mrs. pybus. “you see, he’s going to school.”

“can i go to school?”

156“not ’is school. he’s going to a boy school.”

“oh!” said joan, learning for the first time that schools have sexes. “can i go out in the garden?”

“it isn’t much of a garden,” said mrs. pybus. “but what there is you’re welcome.”

it wasn’t much of a garden. rather it was a yard, into which a lean-to scullery, a coal shed, and a dustbin bit deeply. along one side was a high fence cutting it off from a similar yard, and against this high fence a few nasturtiums gingered the colour scheme. a clothes-line stretched diagonally across this space and bore a depressed pair of black stockings, and in the corner at the far end a lilac bush was slowly but steadily and successfully wishing itself dead. the opposite corner was devoted to a collection of bottles, the ribs of an umbrella, and a dust-pan that had lost its handle. from beneath this curious rather than pleasing accumulation peeped the skeleton of a “rockery” built of brick clinkers and free from vegetation of any sort. an unseen baby a garden or two away deplored its existence loudly. at intervals a voice that sounded like the voice of an embittered little girl cut across these lamentations:

“well, you shouldn’t ’ave broke yer bottle,” said the voice, with a note of moral demonstration....

joan stayed in this garden for exactly three minutes. then she returned to mrs. pybus, who was engaged in some dim operations with a kettle in the kitchen. “drat this old kitchener!” said mrs. pybus, rattling at a damper.

“want to go ’ome,” joan said, in a voice that betrayed emotion.

mrs. pybus turned her meagre face and surveyed joan without excessive tenderness.

“this is your ’ome, dearie,” she said.

“i live at ingle-nook,” said joan.

mrs. pybus shook her head. “all that’s been done away with,” she said. “your aunts ’ave give you up, and you’re going to live ’ere for good—’long o’ me.”

§ 5

meanwhile mr. grimes, with a cheerful kindliness that peter perceived to be assumed, conveyed that young gentleman 157first to an outfitter, where he was subjected to nameless indignities with a tape, and finally sent behind a screen and told to change out of his nice, comfortable old clothes and heidelberg sandals into a shirt and a collar and a grey flannel suit, and hard black shoes. all of which he did in a mute, helpless rage, because he did not consider himself equal to mr. grimes and the outfitter and his staff (with possibly the chauffeur thrown in) in open combat. he was then taken to a hairdresser and severely clipped, which struck him as a more sensible proceeding; the stuff they put on his head was indeed pleasingly aromatic; and then he was bought some foolery of towels and things, and finally a bible and a prayer-book and a box. with this box he returned to the outfitter’s, and was quite interested in discovering that a pile of things had accumulated on the counter, ties, collars and things, and were to be packed in the box for him forthwith. a junior assistant was doing up his limpsfield clothes in a separate parcel. so do we put off childish things. that parcel was to go via mr. grimes to the ingle-nook.

a memory of certain beloved sea stories came into peter’s head. “this my kit?” he asked mr. grimes abruptly.

“you might call it your kit,” said mr. grimes.

“am i going on a battleship?” asked peter.

mr. grimes—and the two outfitting assistants in sympathy—were loudly amused.

“you’re going to high cross school,” said mr. grimes, emerging from his mirth. “firm treatment. sound church training. unruly boys not objected to.”

“i didn’t know,” said peter.

they returned to the automobile, and after a mile or so of roads and turnings stopped outside a gaunt brace of drab-coloured semi-detached villas standing back behind a patch of lawn, and having a walled enclosure to the left and an overgrown laurel shrubbery to the right. “here’s high cross school,” said mr. grimes, a statement that was rendered unnecessary by a conspicuous black and gold board that rose above the walled enclosure. they descended.

“wonther which ithe houth,” mused mr. grimes, consulting his teeth, and then suddenly decided and led peter towards the right hand of the two associated doors. “this,” 158said mr. grimes, as they waited on the doorstep, “is a real school.... no nonsense about it,” said mr. grimes.

peter nodded with affected intelligence.

they were ushered by a slatternly maid-servant into the presence of a baldish man with a white, puffy face and pale grey eyes, who was wearing a university gown and seemed to be expecting them. he was standing before the fireplace in the front parlour, which had a general air of being a study. there were an untidy desk facing the window and bookshelves in the recess on either side of the fireplace. over the mantel was a tobacco-jar bearing the arms of some college, and reminders of mr. mainwearing’s university achievements in the form of a college shield and cambridge photographs.

“well,” said mr. grimes, “here’s your young man,” and thrust peter forward.

“so you’ve come to join us?” said mr. mainwearing with a sort of clouded amiability.

“join what?” said peter.

mr. mainwearing raised his eyebrows. “high cross school,” he said.

“i’m at the school of st. george and the venerable bede,” said peter. “so how can i?”

“no,” said mr. grimes; “you’re joining here now.”

“but i can’t go to two schools.”

“consequently you’re coming to this one,” said mr. grimes.

“it’s very sudden,” said peter.

“what’s this about the school of saint what’s-his-name?” asked mr. mainwearing of mr. grimes.

“it’s just a sort of fad school they’ve been sending him to,” mr. grimes explained. “we’re altering all that. it’s a girls’ school, and he’s a growing boy. it’s a school where socialism and play-acting are school subjects, and everybody runs about with next to nothing on. so his proper guardians have decided that’s got to stop. and here we are.”

mr. mainwearing regarded peter heavily while this was going on.

“done any square root yet?” he asked suddenly.

peter had not.

159“know the date of magna carta?”

peter did not. “it was under john,” he said.

“i wanted the date,” said mr. mainwearing. “what’s the capital of bulgaria?”

peter did not know.

“know any french irregular verbs?”

peter said he didn’t.

“got to begin at the beginning,” said mr. mainwearing. “got your outfit?”

“we’ve just seen to that,” said mr. grimes. “there’s one or two things i’d like to say to you—”

he glanced at peter.

mr. mainwearing comprehended. he came and laid one hand on peter. “time you saw some of your schoolfellows,” he said.

under his guiding pressure peter was impelled along a passage, through an archway, across an empty but frowsty schoolroom in which one solitary small boy sat and sobbed grievously, and so by way of another passage to a kind of glass back-door from which steps went down to a large gravelled space, behind the high wall that carried the black and gold board. in the corner were parallel bars. a group of nine or ten boys were standing round these bars; they were all clad in the same sort of grey flannels that peter was wearing, and they had all started round at the sound of the opening of the door. one shock-headed boy, perhaps a head taller than any of the rest, had a great red mouth beneath a red nose.

“boys!” shouted mr. mainwearing; “here’s a new chum. see that he learns his way about a bit, probyn.”

“yessir!” said the shock-headed boy in a loud adult kind of voice.

mr. mainwearing gave peter a shove that started him down the steps towards the playground, and slammed the door behind him.

most of these boys were bigger than any boys that peter had ever known before. they looked enormous. he reckoned some must be fifteen or sixteen—quite. they were as big as the biggest sheldrick girl. probyn seemed indeed as big as a man; peter could see right across the playground 160that he had a black smear of moustache. his neck and wrists and elbows stuck out of his clothes.

peter with his hands in his new-found pockets walked slowly towards these formidable creatures across the stony playground. they regarded him enigmatically. so explorers must feel, who land on a strange beach in the presence of an unknown race of men.

§ 6

“come on, fathead!” said probyn as he drew near.

peter had expected that tone. he affected indifference.

“what’s your name?” asked probyn.

“stubland,” said peter. “you probyn?”

“stubland,” said probyn. “stubland. what’s your christian name?”

“peter. what’s yours?”

probyn disregarded this counter question markedly. “simon peter, eh! your father got you out of the bible, i expect. know anything of cricket, simon peter?”

“not much,” said simon peter.

“can you swim?”

“no.”

“can you fight?”

“i don’t know.”

“what’s your father?”

peter didn’t answer. instead, he fixed his attention upon a fair-haired boy of about his own size who was standing at the end of the parallel bars. “what’s your name?” he asked.

the fair boy looked at probyn.

“damn it!” said probyn. “i asked you a question, mr. simon peter.”

peter continued disregardful. “hasn’t this school got a flagstaff?” he asked generally.

probyn came closer to him and gripped him by the shoulder. “i asked you a question, mr. simon peter. what is your father?”

it was a question peter could not answer because for some obscure reason he could not bring himself to say that his 161father was dead. if ever he said that, he knew his father would be dead. but what else could he say of his father? so he seemed to shrink a little and remained mute. “we’ll have to cross-examine you,” said probyn, and shook him.

the fair boy came in front of peter. it was clear he had great confidence in probyn. he had a fat, smooth, round face that peter disliked.

“simon peter,” he said. “answer up.”

“what is your father?” said probyn.

“what’s your father?” repeated the fair boy, and then suddenly flicked peter under the nose with his finger.

but this did at least enable peter to change the subject. he smote at the fat-faced boy with great vigour and missed him. the fat-faced boy dodged back quickly.

“hullo!” said probyn. “ginger!”

“that chap’s not going to touch my nose,” said peter. “anyhow.”

“touch it when i like,” said the fat-faced boy.

“you won’t.”

“you want to fight?” asked the fat-faced boy, conscious of popular support.

peter said he wasn’t going to have his nose flicked anyhow.

“flick it again, newton,” said probyn, “and see.”

“i’ll show you in no time,” said newton.

“why!—i’d lick you with one hand,” continued newton.

peter said nothing. but he regarded his antagonist very intently.

“skinny little snipe,” said newton. “whaddyou think you’d do to me?”

“hit him, newton,” said a cadaverous boy with freckles.

“hit him, newton. he’s too cocky,” said another. “flick his silly nose again and see.”

“i’ll hit him ’f’e wants it,” said newton, and buttoned up his jacket in a preparatory way.

“hit him, newton,” other voices urged.

“let him put up his fists,” said newton.

“do that when i please,” said peter rather faintly.

newton had seemed at first just about peter’s size. now he seemed very much larger. all the boys seemed to have grown larger. they were gathering in a vast circle of doom 162round a minute and friendless peter. probyn loomed over him like a figure of fate. peter wondered whether he need have hit at newton. it seemed now a very unwise thing indeed to have done. newton was alternately swaying towards him and swaying away from him, and repeating his demand for peter to put his hands up. he seemed on the verge of flicking again. he was going to flick. probyn watched them both critically. then with a rapid movement of the mind peter realized that newton’s face was swaying now well within his range; the moment had come, and desperately, with a great effort and a wide and sweeping movement of the arm, he smote hard at newton’s cheek. smack. a good blow. newton recoiled with an expression of astonishment. “you—swine!” he said.

two other boys came running across the playground, and voices explained, “new boy.... fight....”

but curiously enough the fight did not go on. newton at a slightly greater distance continued to loom threateningly, but did no more than loom. his cheek was very red. “i’ll break your jaw, cutting at me like that,” he said. “you swine!” he used foul and novel terms expressive of rage. he looked at probyn as if for approval, but probyn offered none. he continued to threaten, but he did not come within arm’s length again.

“hit him back, newton,” several voices urged, but with no success.

“wait till i start on him,” said newton.

“buck up, young newton,” said probyn suddenly, “and stop jawing. you began it. i’m not going to help you. make a ring, you chaps. it’s a fair fight.”

peter found himself facing newton in the centre of an interested circle.

newton was walking crab fashion athwart the circle, swaying with his fists and elbows high. he was now acting a dangerous intentness. “come on,” he said terribly.

“hit him, newton,” said the cadaverous boy. “don’t wait for him.”

“you started it, newton,” probyn insisted. “and he’s hit you fair.”

a loud familiar sound, the clamorous ringing of a bell, 163struck across the suspended drama. “that’s tea,” said newton eagerly, dropping his fists. “it’s no good starting on him now.”

“you’ll have to fight him later,” said probyn. “now he’s hit you.”

“it’s up to you, newton,” said the cadaverous boy, evidently following probyn’s lead.

“cavé. it’s noser,” said a voice.

there was a little pause.

“toke!” cried probyn.

“toke, simon peter,” said the cadaverous boy informingly....

peter found himself no longer in focus. every one was moving towards the door whence peter had descended to the playground, and at this door there now stood a middle-aged man with a large nose and a sly expression, surveying the boys.

impelled by gregarious instincts, peter followed the crowd.

he did not like these hostile boys. he did not like this shabby-looking place. he was quite ready to believe that presently he would have to go on fighting newton. he was not particularly afraid of newton, but he perceived that probyn stood behind him. he detested probyn already. he was afraid of probyn. probyn was like a golliwog. he knew by instinct that probyn was full of disagreeable possibilities for him, and that it would be very hard to get away from probyn. and what did it all mean? was he never going back to limpsfield again?

the bell had had exactly the tone of the tea bell at miss murgatroyd’s school. it might have been the same bell. and it had made his heart homesick for the colour and brightness of the school of st. george and the venerable bede, and for the friendly garden and familiar rooms of ingle-nook. for the first time he realized that he had fallen into this school as an animal falls into a trap, that his world had changed, that home was very far away....

and what had they done to joan?...

had he to live here always?...

it struck mr. noakley, the assistant master with the large nose, as he watched the boys at tea, that the new boy had a 164face like a doll, but really that face with its set, shining, expressionless eyes was only the mask, the very thin mask, that covered a violent disposition to blubber....

well, no one was going to see peter blub. no one was going to hear him blub....

tonight perhaps in bed.

he had still to realize the publicity of a school dormitory....

he knew he couldn’t box, but he had seen something in newton’s eyes that made him feel that newton was not invincible. he would grip his fists in a very knobby way and hit newton as hard as he could in the face. oh!—frightfully hard....

peter was not eating very much. “bags i your slice of toke,” said the cadaverous boy.

“take the beastly stuff,” said peter.

“little spoilt mammy coddle,” thought old nosey noakley. “we aren’t good enough for him.”

§ 7

so it was that mr. grimes, acting for lady charlotte, set about the rescue of joan and peter from, as she put it, “the freaks, faddists and hill-top philosophies of the surrey hills,” and their restoration to the established sobrieties and decorums of english life. very naturally this sudden action came as an astonishing blow to the two advanced aunts. at nine o’clock that evening miss murgatroyd was called down to see miss phyllis stubland, who had ridden over on her bicycle. “where are the children?” asked aunt phyllis.

“you sent for them,” said miss murgatroyd.

“sent for them!”

“yes. i remember now. the young man said it was lady charlotte sydenham. didn’t you know? she is going abroad tomorrow or the next day.”

“sent for them!” aunt phyllis repeated....

two hours later aunt phyllis was telling the terrible news to mary. aunt phœbe was in london for the night to see mr. tree play richard ii, and there were no means of communicating with her until the morning. the ingle-nook was 165much too pre-raphaelite to possess a telephone, and aunt phœbe was sleeping at the flat of a friend in church row, hampstead. next morning a telegram found her still in bed.

“children kidnapped by lady charlotte consult sycamore phyllis”

said the telegram.

“no!” cried aunt phœbe sharply.

then as the little servant-maid was on the point of closing the door, “tell miss jepson,” aunt phœbe commanded....

miss jepson found aunt phœbe out of bed and dressing with a rapid casualness. it was manifest that some great crisis had happened. “an outrage upon all women,” said aunt phœbe. “i have been outraged.”

“my dear!” said miss jepson.

“read that telegram!” cried aunt phœbe, pointing to a small ball of pink paper in the corner of the room.

miss jepson went over to the corner with a perplexed expression, and smoothed out the telegram and read it.

“a bradshaw and a hansom!” aunt phœbe was demanding as she moved rapidly about the room from one scattered garment to another. “no breakfast. i can eat nothing. nothing. i am a tigress. a maddened tigress. maddened. beyond endurance. oh! can you reach these buttons, dear?”

miss jepson hovered about her guest readjusting her costume in accordance with commonplace standards while aunt phœbe expressed herself in sibylline utterances.

“children dedicated to the future.... reek of ancient corruptions.... abomination of desolation.... the nine fifty-three.... say half an hour.... remonstrance.... an avenging sword.... the sword of the lord and of gideon.”

“are you going to this mr. sycamore?” asked miss jepson suddenly.

aunt phœbe seemed lost for a time and emerged with, “good god!—no! this is an occasion when a woman must show she can act as a man. this tries us, amanda. i will have no man in this. no man at all! are women to loll in hareems for ever while men act and fight? when little children are assailed?...”

166“chastlands,” said aunt phœbe to the cabman, waving miss jepson’s bradshaw in her hand.

the man looked stupid.

“oh! charing cross,” she cried scornfully. “the rest is beyond you.”

and in the train she startled her sole fellow-traveller and made him get out at the next station by saying suddenly twice over in her loud, clear contralto voice the one word “action.” she left miss jepson’s bradshaw in the compartment when she got out.

she found chastlands far gone in packing for lady charlotte’s flight abroad. “i demand lady charlotte,” she said. she followed up old cashel as he went to announce her. he heard her coming behind him, but his impression of her was so vivid that he deemed it wiser not to notice this informality. and besides in his dry, thin way he wanted to hear why she demanded lady charlotte. he perceived the possibilities of a memorable clash. he was a quiet, contemplative man who hid his humour like a miser’s treasure and lived much upon his memories. weeks after a thing had happened he would suddenly titter, in bed, or in church, or while he was cleaning his plate. and none were told why he tittered.

for a moment aunt phœbe hovered on the landing outside the chastlands drawing-room.

“i can’t see her,” she heard lady charlotte say, with something like a note of terror. “it is impossible.”

“leave her to me, me lady,” said a man’s voice.

“tell her to wait, cashel,” said lady charlotte.

aunt phœbe entered, trailing her artistic robes. before her by the writing-table in the big window stood lady charlotte, flounced, bonneted, dressed as if for instant flight. a slender, fair, wincing man in grey stood nearer, his expression agitated but formidable. they had evidently both risen to their feet as aunt phœbe entered. cashel made insincere demonstrations of intervention, but aunt phœbe disposed of him with a gesture. a haughty and terrible politeness was in her manner, but she sobbed slightly as she spoke.

“lady charlotte,” she said, “where are my wards?”

167“they are my wards,” said lady charlotte no less haughtily.

“excuse me, lady charlotte. permit me,” said mr. grimes, with soothing gestures of his lean white hands.

“please do not intervene,” said aunt phœbe.

“mr. grimes, madam, is my solicitor,” said lady charlotte. “you may go, cashel.”

cashel went reluctantly.

mr. grimes advanced a step and dandled his hands and smiled ingratiatingly. italian and spanish women will stab, he had heard, and fishwives are a violent class. otherwise he believed all women, however terrible in appearance, to be harmless. this gave him courage.

“miss stubland, i believe,” he said. “these young people, young stubland and his foster-sister to wit, are at present in my charge—under instructions from lady charlotte.”

“where?” asked aunt phœbe.

“our case, miss stubland, is that they were not being properly educated in your charge. that is our case. they were receiving no sound moral and religious training, and they were being brought up in—to say the least of it—an eccentric fashion. our aim in taking them out of your charge is to secure for them a proper ordinary english bringing up.”

“every word an insult,” panted aunt phœbe. “every word. what have you done with them?”

“until we are satisfied that you will consent to continue their training on proper lines, miss stubland, you can scarcely expect us to put it in your power to annoy these poor children further.”

mr. grimes’ face was wincing much more than usual, and these involuntary grimaces affected aunt phœbe in her present mood as though they were deliberate insults. he did not allow for this added exasperation.

“annoy!” cried aunt phœbe.

“that is the usual expression. we are perfectly within our rights in refusing you access. having regard to your manifest determination to upset any proper arrangement.”

“you refuse to let me know where those children are?”

“unless you can get an order against us.”

168“you mean—go to some old judge?”

mr. grimes gesticulated assent. if she chose to phrase it in that way, so much the worse for her application.

“you won’t—— you will go on with this kidnapping?”

“miss stubland, we are entirely satisfied with our present course and our present position.”

lady charlotte endorsed him with three great nods.

aunt phœbe stood aghast.

mr. grimes remained quietly triumphant. lady charlotte stood quietly triumphant behind him. for a moment it seemed as if aunt phœbe had no reply of any sort to make.

then suddenly she advanced three steps and seized upon mr. grimes. one hand gripped his nice grey coat below the collar behind, the other, the looseness of his waistcoat just below the tie. and lifting him up upon his toes aunt phœbe shook him.

mr. grimes was a lean, spare, ironical man. aunt phœbe was a well-developed woman. yet only by an enormous effort did she break the instinctive barriers that make a man sacred from feminine assault. it was an effort so enormous that when at last it broke down the dam of self-restraint, it came through a boiling flood of physical power. it came through with a sort of instantaneousness. at one moment mr. grimes stood before lady charlotte’s eyes dominating the scene; at the next he was, as materialists say of the universe, “all vibrations.” he was a rag, he was a scrap of carpet in aunt phœbe’s hands. the appetite for shaking seemed to grow in aunt phœbe as she shook.

from the moment when aunt phœbe gripped him until she had done shaking him nobody except lady charlotte made an articulate sound. and all that lady charlotte said, before astonishment overcame her, was one loud “haw!” the face of mr. grimes remained set, except for a certain mechanical rattling of the teeth in a wild stare at aunt phœbe; aunt phœbe’s features bore that earnest calm one may see upon the face of a good woman who washes clothes or kneads bread. then suddenly it was as if aunt phœbe woke up out of a trance.

“you make—you make me forget myself!” said aunt 169phœbe with a low sob, and after one last shake relinquished him.

mr. grimes gyrated for a moment and came to rest against a massive table. he was still staring at aunt phœbe.

for a moment the three people remained breathing heavily and contemplating the outrage. at last mr. grimes was able to raise a wavering, pointing finger to gasp, “you have—you have—yes—indeed—forgotten yourself!”

then, as if he struggled to apprehend the position, “you—you have assaulted me.”

“let it be—let it be a warning to you,” said aunt phœbe.

“that is a threat.”

“agreed,” panted aunt phœbe with spirit, though she had not meant to threaten him at all.

“if you think, madam, that you can assault me with impunity——”

“i shouldn’t have thought it—before i took hold of you. a bag of bones.... man indeed!” and then very earnestly—“yes.”

she paused. the pause held all three of them still.

“but why—oh, why!—should i bandy words with such a thing as you?” she asked with a sudden belated recovery of her dignity. “you—”

she sought her word carefully.

“flibber-gib!”

and forgetting altogether the mission upon which she had come, aunt phœbe turned about to make her exit from the scene. it seemed to her, perhaps justly, that it was impossible to continue the parley further. “legalized scoundrel!” she said over her shoulder, and moved towards the door. in that first tremendous clash of the new woman and the terrific old lady, it must be admitted that the new woman carried off, so to speak, the physical honours. lady charlotte stood against the fireplace visibly appalled. only when aunt phœbe was already at the door did it occur to lady charlotte to ring the bell to have her visitor “shown out.” her shaking hand could scarcely find the bell handle. for the rest she was ineffective, wasting great opportunities for scorn and dignity. she despised herself for not having a larger, fiercer solicitor. she doubted herself. for the 170first time in her life lady charlotte sydenham doubted herself, and quailed before a new birth of time.

upon the landing appeared old cashel, mutely respectful. he showed out aunt phœbe in profound silence. he watched her retreating form with affectionate respect, stroking his cheek slowly with two fingers. he closed the door.

he stood as one who seeks to remember. “flibber-jib,” he said at last very softly, without exultation or disapproval. he simply wanted to have it exactly right. then he went upstairs to have a long, mild, respectful look at mr. grimes, and to ask if he could do anything for him....

§ 8

aunt phœbe’s return to the ingle-nook blended triumph and perplexity.

“i could never have imagined a man so flimsy,” she said.

“but where are the children?” asked aunt phyllis.

“if all men are like him—then masculine ascendancy is an imposture.”

(“yes, but where are the children?”)

“so a baulked tigress might feel.”

aunt phyllis decided to write to mr. sycamore.

§ 9

mr. mainwearing was the proprietor of a private school for young gentlemen, not by choice but by reason of the weaknesses of his character. it was card-playing more than anything else that had made him an educator. and it was vanity and the want of any sense of proportion that had led to the card-playing.

mr. mainwearing’s father had been a severe parent, severe to the pitch of hostility. he had lost his wife early, and he had taken a grudge against his only son, whose looks he did not like. he had sent him to cambridge with a bitter assurance that he would do no good there; had kept him too short of money to be comfortable, spent most of his property—he was a retired tea-broker—in disappointing and embittering jaunts into vice, and died suddenly, leaving—unwillingly, 171but he had to leave it—about three thousand pounds to his heir. young mainwearing had always been short of pocket-money, and for a time he regarded this legacy as limitless wealth; he flashed from dingy obscurity into splendour, got himself coloured shirts and remarkable ties, sought the acquaintance of horses, slipped down to london for music-halls and “life.” when it dawned upon him that even three thousand pounds was not a limitless ocean of money, he attempted to maintain its level by winning more from his fellow undergraduates. nap and poker were the particular forms of sport he affected. he reckoned that he was, in a quiet way, rather cleverer than most fellows, and that he would win. but he was out in his reckoning. he left cambridge with a junior optime in the mathematical tripos and a residuum of about seven hundred pounds. he was a careful cricketer, and he had liked football at school in his concluding years when he was big enough to barge into the other chaps. surveying the prospect before him, he decided that a school was the best place for him, he advertised himself as “of gentlemanly appearance” and “good at games,” and he found his billet in a preparatory school at brighton. thence he went to a big grammar school, and thence came to the high cross school to remain first as assistant, then as son-in-law and partner, and now as sole proprietor. mrs. mainwearing was not very useful as a helpmeet, as she was slightly but not offensively defective in her mind; still one must take life as one finds it. she was, at any rate, regular in her habits, and did not interfere with the housekeeper, a worthy, confidence-creating woman, much tipped by the tenderer sort of parent.

of course mr. mainwearing had no special training as a teacher. he had no ideas about education at all. he had no social philosophy. he had never asked why he was alive or what he was up to. instinct, perhaps, warned him that the answer might be disagreeable. much less did he inquire what his boys were likely to be up to. and it did not occur to him, it did not occur to any one in those days, to consider that these deficiencies barred him in any way from the preparation of the genteel young for life. he taught as he had been taught; his teachers had done the same; he was 172the last link of a long chain of tradition that had perhaps in the beginning had some element of intention in it as to what was to be made of the pupil. schools, like religions, tend perpetually to forget what they are for. high cross school, like numberless schools in great britain in those days, had forgotten completely; it was a mysterious fated routine; the underlying idea seemed to be that boys must go to school as puppies have the mange. certain school books existed, god alone knew why, and the classes were taken through them. it was like reading prayers. certain examination boards checked this process in a way that mr. mainwearing felt reflected upon his honour, and like all fundamentally dishonest people he was inclined to be touchy about his honour. but parents wanted examination results and he had to give in. preparation for examinations dominated the school; no work was done in the school that did not lead towards an examination paper; if there had been no examinations, no work would have been done at all. but these examinations might have been worse than they were. the examiners were experienced teachers and considerate for their kind. they respected the great routine. the examiners in classics had, at best, babu latin and less greek, and so they knew quite well how to set a paper that would enable the intelligent candidate to conceal an entire incapacity for reading, writing, or speaking a classical language; the examiners in mathematics knew nothing of practical calculations, and treated the subject as a sort of patience game; the foreign language examiners stuck loyally to the grammar; in drawing the examiners asked you to copy “copies,” they did not, at any rate, require you to draw things; and altogether the “curse of examinations” might have pressed on mr. mainwearing harder than it did. suppose the language papers had been just long passages to translate into and out of english, and that the mathematical test had been all problems, and the drawing test had been a test of drawing anything! what school could have stood the strain?

to assist him in the work of his school mr. mainwearing had gathered about him a staff of three. he had found a young man rather of his own social quality, but very timid, a b.a. cantab. by way of the botanical special; then there 173was noakley, a rather older, sly creature, with a large overbalancing nose, who had failed to qualify years ago as an elementary assistant schoolmaster and so had strayed into the uncharted and uncertificated ways of a private school; and finally there was kahn, an alsatian, who taught languages and the piano. with these three and the active assistance of mrs. rich, the housekeeper, the school maintained its sluggish routines.

the boys slept in two long rooms that had been made by knocking through partitions in the two upper floors, and converted into dormitories by the simple expedient of crowding them with iron bedsteads and small chests of drawers. it was the business of noakley—who had a separate room on the top floor—to arouse the boys at seven with cries and violence for the business of the day. but there was a tacit understanding between him and the boys not to molest each other until about twenty minutes past.

it was a rule, established by mr. mainwearing in a phase of hygienic enthusiasm some years before, that on fine mornings throughout the year the boys should go for a sharp run before breakfast. it was a modern and impressive thing to do and it cost him nothing. it was noakley’s duty to accompany them on this run. he was unable to imagine any more loathsome duty. so that he had invented a method of supplementing the rains of heaven by means of a private watering-pot. his room was directly above mr. mainwearing’s, and mr. mainwearing slept with his window shut and his blinds down, and about seven-fifteen or so every morning the curious passer-by might have seen a lean, sly man with an enormous nose, his mouth wide open and his tongue out with effort, leaning far out of an upper bedroom of high cross school and industriously and carefully watering the window and window-sill of the room two storeys below him. later, perhaps, a patient observer might have been rewarded by the raising of mr. mainwearing’s blind and a glimpse of mr. mainwearing, unshaven and in a white cotton nightgown, glancing out at the weather....

so generally the morning began with a tedious, sticky, still sleepy hour called early prep. in the schoolroom on the ground floor. it was only during kahn’s alternate week of 174morning duty that the run ever occurred. then it wasn’t a run. it began as a run and settled down as soon as it was out of sight of the school to a sulky walk and a muttered monologue by kahn in german—he never spoke any language but german before breakfast—about his “magen.”

noakley’s method in early prep. was to sit as near to the fire as possible in the winter and at the high desk in summer, and to leave the boys alone so long as they left him alone. they conversed in undertones, made and threw paper darts at one another, read forbidden fiction, and so forth. breakfast at half-past eight released them, and there was a spell of playground before morning school at half-past nine. at half-past nine mr. mainwearing and mr. smithers, the botanical cantab, appeared in the world, gowned and a little irritable, and prayers and scripture inaugurated the official day. mr. mainwearing’s connexion was a sound church connexion, and he opened the day with an abbreviated matins and the collect and lessons for the day. then the junior half of the school went upstairs to the second class-room with mr. smithers, while mr. mainwearing dealt tediously with chronicles or kings. meanwhile kahn and noakley corrected exercise-books in the third class-room, and waited their time to take up their part in the great task of building up the british imperial mind. by eleven o’clock each of the four class-rooms was thoroughly stuffy and the school was in full swing; mr. mainwearing, who could not have translated a new satire by juvenal to save his life, was “teaching” greek or latin or history, mr. smithers was setting or explaining exercises on the way to quadratic equations or euclid book ii., which were the culminating points of high cross mathematics; kahn, hoarse with loud anger, was making a personal quarrel of the french class; and noakley was gently setting the feet of the younger boys astray in geography or arithmetic or parsing. this was the high-water mark of the day’s effort.

after the midday dinner, which was greasy and with much too much potato in it, came a visible decline. in the afternoon mr. mainwearing would start a class upon some sort of exercises, delegate probyn to keep order, and retire to slumber in his study; smithers and kahn, who both suffered from 175indigestion, would quarrel bitterly with boys they disliked and inflict punishments; noakley would sleep quietly through a drawing class on the tacit understanding that there was no audible misbehaviour, and that the boys would awaken him if they heard mr. mainwearing coming.

mr. mainwearing, when he came, usually came viciously. he would awaken in an evil temper and sit cursing his life for some time before he could rouse himself to a return to duty. he would suddenly become filled with suspicions, about the behaviour of the boys or the worthiness of his assistants. he would take his cane and return with a heavy scowl on his face through the archway to his abandoned class.

he would hear a murmur of disorder, a squeak of “cavé!” and a hush.

or he would hear probyn’s loud bellow: “shut up, young pyecroft. shut it, i say!—or i’ll report you!”

he would appear threateningly in the doorway.

“what’s he doing, probyn?” he would ask. “what’s he doing?”

“humbugging about, sir. he’s always humbugging about.”

the diffused wrath of mr. mainwearing would gather to a focus. if there were no little beasts like young pyecroft he wouldn’t be in this infernal, dull, dreary hole of a school.

“i’ll teach you to humbug about, pyecroft,” he would say. “come out, sir!”

“please, sir!”

roar. “don’t bandy words with me, you little hound! come out, i say!”

“please——!” young pyecroft would come out slowly and weeping. mr. mainwearing would grip him hungrily.

“i’ll teach you to humbug about. (cut.) i’ll teach you! (cut.) i can’t leave this class-room for a moment but half a dozen of you must go turning it upside down.” (cut.)

“wow!”

“don’t answer me, sir!” (cut.) “don’t answer me.” (cut.) “now, sir?”

pyecroft completely subdued. pyecroft relinquished.

“now, are there any more of you?” asked mr. mainwearing, feeling a little better.

176then he would hesitate. should he take the set work at once, or should he steal upstairs on tiptoe to catch out one of the assistants? his practice varied. he always suspected noakley of his afternoon sleep, and was never able to catch him. noakley slept with the class-room door slightly open. his boys could hear the opening of the class-room door downstairs. when they did they would smack down a book upon the desk close beside him, and noakley would start teaching instantly like an automaton that has just been released. he didn’t take a second to awaken, so that he was very hard indeed to catch.

the school remained a scene of jaded activities until four, when a bell rang for afternoon prayers under mr. mainwearing in the main schoolroom. then the boys would sing a hymn while kahn accompanied on a small harmonium that stood in the corner of the room. while prayers were going on a certain scattered minority of the boys were speculating whether kahn or smithers would remember this or that task that had been imposed in a moment of passion, weighing whether it was safer to obey or forget. kahn and smithers would return to the class-rooms reluctantly to gather in the harvest of their own wrath, but now for a little time noakley was free to do nothing. noakley hardly ever imposed punishments. when he was spoken to upon the subject he would put his nose down in a thoughtful manner and reply in a tone of mild observation: “the boys, they seem to mind me somehow.”

meanwhile the released boys dispersed to loaf about the playground and the outhouses and playing-field until tea at five. sometimes there was a hectic attempt at cricket or football in the field in which mr. mainwearing participated, and then tea was at half-past five. when mr. mainwearing participated he liked to bat, and he did not like to be bowled out. noakley was vaguely supposed to superintend tea and evening prep., and the boys, after a supper of milk and biscuits, were packed off to bed at half-past eight. it was much too early to send the bigger boys to bed, but “good god!” said mr. mainwearing; “am i to have no peace in my day?” and he tried to ease his conscience about what might go on in the dormitories after bedtime by directing 177noakley to “exercise a general supervision,” and by occasionally stealing upstairs in his socks.

wednesday and saturday were half-holidays, and in the afternoon the boys wore flannels or shorts, according to the season, and played pick-up cricket or football or hockey in a well-worn field at the back of the school, or they went for a walk with noakley or smithers. on sundays they wore top hats and pseudo-eton jackets, and went to church in the morning and the evening. in the afternoon smithers took scripture wearily for an hour, and then went for a walk with noakley. and on sunday evening they wrote home carefully supervised letters saying how happy they were and how they were all in the best of health and about “examinational prospects,” and how they hoped they were making satisfactory progress and suchlike topics. but they never gave any account of the talk that went on during the playground loafing, nor of the strange games and ceremonies over which probyn presided in the dormitories, nor of the exercises of mr. mainwearing’s cane. there was no library, and the boys never read anything except school books and such printed matter as they themselves introduced into the school. they never read nor drew nor painted nor made verses to please themselves. they never dreamt of acting or singing. their only training in the use of their hands was at cricket, and they never looked at a newspaper. occasionally smithers gave a lesson in botany, but there was no other science teaching. science teaching requires apparatus and apparatus costs money, and so far as the prospectus went it was quite easy to call the botany “science.”...

§ 10

in this manner did high cross school grind and polish its little batch of boys for their participation in the affairs of the greatest, most civilized and most civilizing empire the world has ever seen.

it was, perhaps, a bad specimen of an english private school, but it was a specimen. there were worse as well as better among the schools of england. there were no 178doubt many newer and larger, many cleaner, many better classified. some had visiting drill-sergeants, some had chemistry cupboards, some had specially built gymnasia, some even had school libraries of a hundred volumes or so.... most of them had better housing and better arranged dormitories. and most of them were consistently “preparatory,” stuck to an upward age-limit, and turned out a boy as soon as he became a youth to go on to business or medicine or the public schools. mr. mainwearing’s school was exceptional in this, that it had to hold on to all it could get. he had a connexion with one or two solicitors, an understanding—mr. grimes was one of his friends—and his school contained in addition to peter several other samples of that unfortunate type of boy whose school is found for him by a solicitor. some stayed at windsor with mr. mainwearing during the holidays. in that matter high cross school was exceptional. but the want of any intellectual interest, of any spontaneous activities of the mind at all in high cross school, was no exceptional thing.

life never stands altogether still, but it has a queer tendency to form stationary eddies, and very much of the education of middle-class and upper-class youth in england had been an eddy for a century. the still exquisite and impressionable brains of the new generation came tumbling down the stream, curious, active, greedy, and the eddying schools caught them with a grip of iron and spun them round and round for six or seven precious years and at last flung them out....

§ 11

into this vicious eddy about mr. mainwearing’s life and school came the developing brain of master peter stubland, and resented it extremely. at first he had been too much astonished by his transfer from limpsfield to entertain any other emotion; it was only after some days at high cross school that he began to realize that the experience was not simply astonishing but uncongenial, and indeed hateful.

he discovered he hated the whole place. comprehended within this general hatred were particular ones. he hated 179newton. the fight remained in suspense, neither boy knew anything of scientific fisticuffs, neither had ever worn a boxing-glove, and both were disposed to evade the hard, clear issue of the ring. but newton continued to threaten and grimace at him, and once as he was passing peter on the staircase he turned about and punched him in the back.

for newton peter’s hatred was uncomplicated; for probyn and a second boy nearly as big, a fair, sleepy boy named ames, peter had a feeling that differed from a clear, clean hatred; it had an element of disgust and dread in it. probyn, with ames as an accessory and newton as his pet toady, dominated the school. it is an unnatural and an unwholesome thing for boys and youths of various ages to be herded as closely together as they were in high cross school; the natural instinct of the young is against such an association. in a good, big school whose atmosphere is wholesome, boys will classify themselves out in the completest way; they will not associate, they will scarcely speak with boys outside their own year. there is a foolish way of disposing of this fact by saying that boys are “such snobs.” but indeed they are kept apart by the fiercest instinct of self-preservation. all life and all its questions are stirring and unfolding in the young boy; in every sort of young creature a natural discretion fights against forced and premature developments. “keep to your phase,” says nature. the older boys, perplexed by novel urgencies and curiosities, are embarrassed by their younger fellows; younger boys are naturally afraid of older ones and a little disposed to cringe. but what were such considerations as these to a man like mainwearing? he had never thought over, he had long since forgotten, his own development. any boy, old or young, whose parents could pay the bill, was got into the school and kept in the school as long as possible. none of the school work was interesting; there were constant gaps in the routine when there was nothing to do but loaf. it was inevitable that the older boys should become mischievous louts; they bullied and tormented and corrupted the younger boys because there was nothing else to do; if there had been anything else to do they would have absolutely disregarded the younger boys; and the younger boys did what they could 180to propitiate these powerful and unaccountable giants. the younger boys “sucked up” to the bigger boys; they became, as it were, clients; they were annexed by patrons. they professed unlimited obedience in exchange for protection. newton, for instance, called himself probyn’s “monkey”; pyecroft was ames’s. probyn would help newton with his sums, amuse himself by putting him to the torture (when newton was expected to display a doglike submission) or make him jealous by professing an affection for other small boys.

peter came into this stuffy atmosphere of forced and undignified relationships instinct, though he knew it not, with a passionate sense of honour. from the very beginning he knew there was something in these boys and in their atmosphere that made them different from himself, something from which he had to keep himself aloof. there was a word missing from his vocabulary that would have expressed it, and that word was “cad.” but at the school of st. george and the venerable bede they were not taught to call any people “cads.”

he was a boy capable of considerable reserve. he did not, like young winterbaum, press his every thought and idea upon those about him. he could be frank where he was confident, but this sense of difference smote him dumb. several of his schoolfellows, old noakley, and mr. mainwearing, became uncomfortably aware of an effect of unspoken comment in peter. he would receive a sudden phrase of abuse with a thoughtful expression, as though he weighed it and compared it with some exterior standard. this irritated a school staff accustomed to use abusive language. probyn, after peter had hit newton, took a fancy to him that did not in the least modify peter’s instinctive detestation of the red nostrils and the sloppy mouth and the voluminous bellow. peter became rapidly skilful in avoiding probyn’s conversation, and this monstrously enhanced his attraction for probyn. probyn’s attention varied between deliberate attempts to vex and deliberate attempts to propitiate. he kept alive the promise of a fight with newton, and frankly declared that peter could lick newton any day. newton was as distressed as a cast mistress.

181one evening the cadaverous boy discovered peter drawing warriors on horseback. he reported this strange gift to ames. ames came demanding performances, and peter obliged.

“he can draw,” said ames. “george and the dragon, eh? it’s good.”

probyn was shouted to, and joined in the admiration.

peter drew this and that by request.

“draw a woman,” said ames, and then, as the nimble pencil obeyed, “no—not an old woman. draw—you know. draw a savage woman.”

“draw a girl bathing—like they are in ally sloper’s half-holiday,” said probyn. “just with light things on.”

“draw a heathen goddess,” said ames. “with nothing on at all.”

peter said he couldn’t draw goddesses.

“go on,” said ames. “draw a savage woman.”

peter, being pressed, tried a negress. they hung over him insisting upon details.

“get out, young newton!” cried probyn. “don’t come hanging round here. he’s drawing things.”

ames pressed further requests.

“shan’t draw any more,” said peter with a sudden disinclination.

“go it, simon peter,” said ames, “don’t be a mammy-good.”

“gaw! if i could draw!” said probyn.

but peter had finished drawing.

§ 12

no further questions were asked peter about his father, but on sunday night, when home-letter time came round, any doubt about the soundness of his social position was set at rest by mr. mainwearing himself. home-letters from high cross school involved so many delicate considerations that the proprietor made it his custom to supervise them himself. he distributed sheets of paper with the school heading, and afterwards he collected them and addressed them himself in his study. “you, stubland, must write a 182letter to your aunt,” he said loudly across the room, “and tell her how you are getting on.”

“aunt phyllis?” said peter.

“no, no!” mr. mainwearing answered in clear tones. “your aunt, lady charlotte sydenham.”

respectful glances at peter, and a stare of admiration from probyn.

after a season of reflection peter held up his hand. “please, sir, i don’t write letters to lady charlotte.”

“you must begin.”

still further reflection. “i want to write to my aunt phyllis.”

“nonsense! do as i tell you.”

peter reflected again for some minutes. he was deeply moved. he controlled a disposition to weep. (no one was going to see peter blub in this school—ever.) then mr. mainwearing saw him begin to write, with intervals of deep thought. but the letter was an unsatisfactory one.

“dear aunt phyllis,” it began—in spite of instructions.

“this is a very nice school and i like it very much. i have no pocket-money. we eat toke. please come and take me away now. your affectionate nephew

“peter.”

then peter rubbed his eyes and it made his finger wet, and there was a drop of eye wet fell on the paper, but he did not blub. he did not blub, he knew, because he had made up his mind not to blub, but his face was flushed almost like that of a boy who has been blubbing.

mr. mainwearing came and read the letter. “come, come,” he said, “this won’t do,” which was just what peter had expected. “this is obstinacy,” said mr. mainwearing.

he got peter a fresh sheet of paper and stood over him. “write as i tell you,” said mr. mainwearing.

the other boys listened as this letter was dictated to a quiet but obedient peter:

“dear lady charlotte,

“i arrived safely on wednesday at high cross school, 183which i like very much. i had a long ride in an automobile. mr. grimes bought me a splendid bat. mr. mainwearing has examined me upon my attainments, and believes that with effort i shall make satisfactory progress here. we play cricket here and do modern science as well as our classical studies. i hope you may never be disappointed by my efforts after all your kindness to me.

“your affectionate nephew,

“peter stubland.”

in the night peter woke up out of an ugly and miserable dream, and his eyes were wet with tears. he believed he was caught at high cross school for good and all. he believed that all the things he hated and dreaded were about him now for ever.

§ 13

from the first mr. mainwearing had been prepared for peter’s antagonism. he had been warned by mr. grimes that peter might prove “a little difficult.” the letter to aunt phyllis confirmed this impression he had already formed of a fund of stiff resistance in his new pupil. “i shall have to talk to that young man,” he said.

the occasion was not long in coming.

it came next morning in the general scripture lesson. the boys were reading the gospel of st. matthew verse by verse, and in order to check inattention mr. mainwearing, instead of allowing the boys to read in rotation, was dodging the next verse irregularly from boy to boy. “now, pyecroft,” he would say; “now—rivers.”

he was always ready to pick up a nickname and improve upon it for the general amusement. “now, simonides,” he said.

no answer.

“simonides!”

peter, with his new testament open before him, was studying the map of africa on the end wall. that was egypt and that was the nile, and down that you went to uganda, where all the people dressed in white and nobby walked fearlessly among lions.

184peter became aware of a loud shout of “sim-on-i-des!”

it was apparently being addressed to him by mr. mainwearing. he returned at a jump to europe and high cross school.

“wool-gathering again,” said mr. mainwearing. “thinking of the dear old agapemone, eh? we can’t have that here, young man. we can’t allow that here. we must quicken that proud but sluggish spirit of yours. with the usual stimulus. come out, sir.”

he moved towards the cane, which hung from a nail beside the high desk.

obliging schoolfellows explained to peter. “he spoke to you three times.” “he’s going to swish you.” “you’ll get it.”

peter went very white and sat very tight.

“now, young man,” said mr. mainwearing, flicking the cane. “step out, please....

“come out here, sir.”

no answer from peter.

“stubland,” roared mr. mainwearing. “come out at once.”

there came a break in the traditions of high cross school.

peter rose to his feet. it seemed he was going to obey. and then he said in a voice, faint and small but perfectly clear, “i ain’t going to be caned. no.”

there was a great pause. there was as it were silence in heaven. and then, his footsteps echoing through that immensity of awe, mr. mainwearing advanced upon peter. peter with a loud undignified cry fled along the wall under the map of palestine towards the door.

“stop him there, ames!” cried mr. mainwearing.

ames was slow to understand.

mr. mainwearing put down the cane on the mantelshelf and became very active; he leapt a desk clumsily, upset an inkpot, and collided with ames at the door a moment after peter had vanished. on the landing outside peter hesitated, and then doubled downstairs to the boot-hole. for a moment mr. mainwearing was at fault. “hell!” he said. all the class-room heard him say “hell!” all the school treasured that cry in its heart for future use. “young—,” said mr. mainwearing. 185it was long a matter for secret disputation in the school what particularly choice sort of young thing mr. mainwearing had called peter. then he heard a crash in the boot-hole and was downstairs in a moment. peter was out in the area, up the area steps as quick as a scared grey mouse, and then he made his mistake. he struck out across the open in front of the house. in a dozen strides mr. mainwearing had him.

“i’ll thrash you, sir,” said mr. mainwearing, swinging the little body by the collar, and shaking him as a dog might shake a rat. “i’ll thrash you. i’ll thrash you before the whole school.”

but two people had their blood up now.

“i’ll tell my uncle nobby,” yelled peter. “i’ll tell my uncle nobby. he’s a soldier.”

thus disputing they presently reappeared in the lower class-room. peter was tremendously dishevelled and still kicking, and mr. mainwearing was holding him by the general slack of his garments.

“silence, sir, while i thrash you,” said mr. mainwearing, and he was red and moist.

“my uncle, he’s a soldier. he’s a v.c. you thrash me and he’ll kill you. he’ll kill you. he’ll kill you.”

“gimme my cane, some one,” said mr. mainwearing.

“he’ll kill you.”

nobody got the cane. “probyn,” cried mr. mainwearing, “give me my cane.”

probyn hesitated, and then said to young newton, “you get it.” young newton had been standing up, half offering himself for this service. he handed the cane to mr. mainwearing.

“you touch me!” threatened peter, “you touch me. he’ll kill you,” and taking advantage of the moment when mr. mainwearing’s hand was extended for the cane he scored a sound kick on the master’s knee. then by an inspired wriggle he sought to involve himself with mr. mainwearing’s gown in such a manner as to protect his more vulnerable area.

but now mr. mainwearing was in a position to score. he stuck his cane between his teeth in an impressive and terrible manner, and then got his gown loose and altered his grip 186on his small victim. now for it! the school hung breathless. cut. peter became as lively as an eel. cut.

there were tears in his voice, but his voice was full and clear.

“he’ll kill you. he’ll come here and kill you. i’ll burn down the school.”

“you will, will you?”

cut. a kick. cut. silent wriggles.

“five. six. seven. eight. nine. ten,” counted mr. mainwearing and stopped, and let go his hold with a shove. “now go to your place,” he said. he was secretly grateful to peter that he went. peter had a way at times of looking a very small boy, and he did so now. he was tearful, red and amazingly dishevelled, but still not broken down to technical blubbing. his face was streaked with emotion; it was only too manifest that the routines of high cross had reduced his private ablutions to a minimum. he glanced over his shoulder to see if he was still pursued. he could still sob, “my uncle.”

but mr. mainwearing did not mean this to be the close of the encounter. he had thought out the problems of discipline according to his lights; a boy must give in. peter had still to give in.

“and now stubland,” he proclaimed, “stay in after afternoon school, stay in all tomorrow, and write me out five hundred times, ’i must not sulk. i must obey.’ five hundred times, sir.”

something muffled was audible from peter, something suggestive of a refusal.

“bring them to me on wednesday evening at latest. that will keep you busy—and no time to spare. you hear me, sir? ’i must not sulk’ and ’i must obey.’ and if they are not ready, sir, twelve strokes good and full. and every morning until they are ready, twelve strokes. that’s how we do things here. no shirking. play the fool with me and you pay for it—up to the hilt. this, at any rate, is a school, a school where discipline is respected, whatever queer socialist agapemone you may have frequented before. and now i’ve taken you in hand, young man, i mean to go through 187with you—if you have a hundred uncles nobchick armed to the teeth. if you have a thousand uncles nobchick, they won’t help you, if you air your stubborn temper at high cross school....”

perhaps peter would have written the lines, but young newton, in the company of two friends, came up to him in the playground before dinner. “going to write those lines, simon peter?” asked young newton.

what could a chap do but say, “no fear.”

“you’ll write ’em all right,” said newton, and turned scornfully. so peter sat in the stuffy schoolroom during detention time, and drew pictures of soldiers and battles and adventures and mused and made his plans.

he was going to run away. he was going to run right out of this disgusting place into the world. he would run away tomorrow after the midday meal. it would be the wednesday half-holiday, and to go off then gave him his very best chance of a start; he might not be missed by any one in particular throughout the afternoon. the gap of time until tea-time seemed to him to be a limitless gap. “abscond,” said peter, a beautiful, newly-acquired word. just exactly whither he wanted to go, he did not know. vaguely he supposed he would have to go to his limpsfield aunts, but what he wanted to think he was doing was running away to sea. he was going to run away to sea and meet nobby very soon; he was going to run against nobby by the happiest chance, nobby alone, or perhaps even (this was still dreamier) daddy and mummy. then they would go on explorations together, and he and nobby would sleep side by side at camp fires amidst the howling of lions. somewhere upon that expedition he would come upon mainwearing and probyn and newton, captives perhaps in the hands of savages.

what would he and nobby and mummy and daddy and bungo peter and joan do to such miscreants?...

this kept peter thinking a long time. because it was beyond the limits of peter’s generosity just now to spare mr. mainwearing. probyn perhaps. probyn, penitent to the pitch of tears, might be reduced to the status of a humble fag; even newton might go on living in some very menial 188capacity—there could be a dog with the party of which newton would always go in fear—but mr. mainwearing had exceeded the limits of mercy....

a man like that was capable of any treason....

peter had it!—a beautiful scene. mr. mainwearing detected in a hideous conspiracy with a sinister arab trader to murder the entire expedition, would be captured redhanded by peter (armed with a revolver and a cutlass) and brought before nobby and bungo peter. “the man must die,” nobby would say. “and quickly,” bungo peter would echo, “seeing how perilous is our present situation.”

then peter would step forward. mr. mainwearing in a state of abject terror would fling himself down before him, cling to his knees, pray for forgiveness, pray peter to intercede.

yes. on the whole—yes. peter would intercede.

peter began to see the scene as a very beautiful one indeed....

but nobby would be made of sterner stuff. “you are too noble, peter. in such a country as this we cannot be cumbered with traitor carrion. we have killed the arab. is it just to spare this thousand times more perjured wretch, this blot upon the fair name of englishman? mainwearing, if such indeed be your true name, down on your knees and make your peace with god.”...

at this moment the reverie was interrupted by mr. mainwearing in cricketing flannels traversing the schoolroom. he was going to have a whack before tea. he just stood at the wickets and made the bigger boys bowl to him.

little he knew!

peter affected to write industriously....

§ 14

after the midday meal on wednesday peter loafed for a little time in the playground.

“coming to play cricket, simon peter?” said probyn.

“got to stay in the schoolroom,” said peter.

“he’s going to write his five hundred lines,” said young newton. “i said he would.”

189(young newton would know better later.)

peter went back unobtrusively to the schoolroom. in his desk were two slices of bread-and-butter secreted from the breakfast table and wrapped in clean pages from an exercise-book. these were his simple provisions. with these, a pencil, and a good serviceable catapult he proposed to set out into the wide, wide world. he had no money.

he “scouted” mr. mainwearing into his study, marked that he shut the door, and heard him pull down the blind. the armchair creaked as the schoolmaster sat down for the afternoon’s repose. that would make a retreat from the front door of the school house possible. the back of the house meant a risk of being seen by the servants, the playground door or the cricket-field might attract the attention of some sneak. but from the front door to the road and the shelter of the playground wall was but ten seconds dash. still peter, from the moment he crept out of the main class-room into the passage to the moment when he was out of sight of the windows was as tightly strung as a fiddlestring. never before in all his little life had he lived at such a pitch of nervous intensity. once in the road he ran, and continued to run until he turned into the road to clewer. then he dropped into a good smart walk. the world was all before him.

the world was a warm october afternoon and a straight road, poplars and red roofs ahead. whither the road ran he had no idea, but in the back of his mind, obscured but by no means hidden by a cloud of dreams, was the necessity of getting to ingle-nook. after he had walked perhaps half a mile upon the road to clewer it occurred to peter that he would ask his way.

the first person he asked was a nice little old lady with a kind face, and she did not know where the road went nor whence it came. “that way it goes to pescod street,” she said, “if you take the right turning, and that way it goes past the racecourse. but you have to turn off, you know. that’s clewer church.”

no, she didn’t know which was the way to limpsfield. perhaps if peter asked the postman he’d know.

no postman was visible....

190the next person peter asked was as excessive as the old lady was deficient. he was a large, smiling, self-satisfied man, with a hearty laugh.

“where does the road go, my boy?” he repeated. “why! it goes to maidenhead and cookham. cookham! have you heard the story? this is the way the man told the waiter to take the underdone potatoes. because it’s the way to cookham. see? good, eh? but not so good as telling him to take peas that was. through windsor, you know. because it’s the way to turnham green. ha, ha!

“how far is maidenhead? oh! a tidy bit—a tidy bit. say four miles. put it at four miles.”

when peter asked for limpsfield the large man at once jumped to the conclusion he meant winchfield. “that’s a bit on your left,” he said, “just a bit on your left. how far? oh! a tidy bit. say five miles—five miles and a ’arf, say.”

when he had gone on a little way the genial man shouted back to peter: “might be six miles, perhaps,” he said. “not more.”

which was comforting news. so peter went on his way with his back to limpsfield—which was a good thirty miles and more away from him—and a pleasant illusion that aunts phyllis and phœbe were quite conveniently just round the corner....

about four o’clock he had discovered maidenhead bridge, and thereafter the river held him to the end. he had never had a good look at a river before. it was a glowing october afternoon, and the river life was enjoying its indian summer. high cross school was an infinite distance away, and all its shadows were dismissed from his mind. boats are wonderful things to a small boy who has lived among hills. he wandered slowly along the towing-path, and watched several boats and barges through the lock. in each boat he hoped to see uncle nobby. but it just happened that uncle nobby wasn’t there. near the lock some people were feeding two swans. when they had gone through the lock peter went close down to the swans. they came to him in a manner so friendly that he gave them the better part of his provisions. after that he watched the operations of a man repairing a canadian canoe beside a 191boat-letting place. then he became interested in the shoaling fish in the shallows. after that he walked for a time, on past some little islands. at last, as he was now a little foot-sore, he sat down on the bank in the lush grass above some clumps of sweet rush.

he was just opposite the autumnal fires of the cleveden woods, amidst which he could catch glimpses of italian balustrading. the water was a dark mirror over which hung a bloom of mist. now and then an infrequent boat would glide noiselessly or with a measured beat of rowlocks, through the brown water. afar off was a swan....

presently he would go on to ingle-nook. but not just yet. when his feet and legs were a little rested he would go on. he would ask first for limpsfield and then for ingle-nook. it would be three or four miles. he would get there in time for supper.

he was struck by a thought that should have enlightened him. he wondered no one had ever brought him before from ingle-nook to this beautiful place. it was funny they did not know of it....

above that balustrading among the trees over there, must be a palace, and in that palace lived a beautiful princess who loved peter....

§ 15

it seemed at the first blush the most delightful accident in the world that the man with the ample face should ask peter to mind his boat.

he rowed up to the wooden steps close by where peter was sitting. he seemed to argue a little with the lady who was steering and had to back away again, but at last he got the steps and shipped his oars and held on with a boat hook and got out. he helped the lady to land.

“here, tommy!” he shouted, tying up the boat to the rail of the steps. “just look after this boat a bit. we’re going to have some tea.”

“we shall have to walk miles,” said the lady.

“damn!” said the man.

something seemed to tell peter that the man was cross.

192peter doubted whether he was properly tommy. then he saw that there was something attractive in looking after a boat.

“don’t let any one steal it,” said the man with the ample face, with an unreal geniality. “and i’ll give you a tanner.”

peter arose and came to the steps. the lady and the gentleman stood for a time on the top of the bank, disputing fiercely—she wanted to go one way and he another—and finally disappeared, still disputing, in the lady’s direction. or rather, the lady made off in the direction of cookham and the gentleman followed protesting. “any way it’s miles,” she said....

slowly the afternoon quiet healed again. peter was left in solitude with the boat, the silvery river, the overhanging woods, the distant swan.

at first he just sat and looked at the boat.

it had crimson cushions in it, and the lady had left a japanese sunshade. the name of the boat was the princess may. the lining wood of the boat was pale and the outer wood and the wood of the rowlocks darker with just one exquisite gold line. the oars were very wonderful, but the boat-hook with its paddle was much more wonderful. it would be lovely to touch that boat-hook. it was a thing you could paddle with or you could catch hold with the hook or poke with the spike.

in a minute or so the call of the boat-hook had become irresistible, and peter had got it out of the boat. he held it up like a spear, he waved it about. he poked the boat out with it and tried to paddle with it in the water between the boat and the bank, but the boat swung back too soon.

presently he got into the boat very carefully so as to paddle with the boat-hook in the water beyond the boat. in wielding the paddle he almost knocked off his hat, so he took it off and laid it in the bottom of the boat. then he became deeply interested in his paddling.

when he paddled in a certain way the whole boat, he found, began to swing out and round, and when he stopped paddling it went back against the bank. but it could not go completely 193round because of the tight way in which the ample-faced man had tied it to the rail of the steps. if the rope were tied quite at its end the boat could be paddled completely round. it would be beautiful to paddle it completely round with the waggling rudder up-stream instead of down.

that thought did not lead to immediate action. but within two minutes peter was untying the boat and retying it in accordance with his ambitions.

in those days the boy scout movement was already in existence, but it had still to disseminate sound views about knot-tying among the rising generation. peter’s knot was not so much a knot as a knot-like gesture. how bad it was he only discovered when he was back in the boat and had paddled it nearly half-way round. then he saw that the end of the rope was slipping off the rail to which he had tied it as a weary snake might slink off into the grass. the stem of the boat was perhaps a yard from shore.

peter acted with promptitude. he dropped his paddle, ran to the bows, and jumped. except for his left leg he landed safely. his left leg he recovered from the water. but there was no catching the rope. it trailed submerged after the boat, and the boat with an exasperating leisureliness, with a movement that was barely perceptible, widened its distance from the bank.

for a time peter’s mind wrestled with this problem. should he try and find a stick that would reach the boat? should he throw stones so as to bring it back in shore?

or perhaps if he told some one that the boat was adrift?

he went up the steps to the towing-path. there was no one who looked at all helpful within sight. he watched the boat drift slowly for a time towards the middle of the stream. then it seemed to be struck with an idea of going down to maidenhead. he watched it recede and followed it slowly. when he saw some people afar off he tried to look as though he did not belong to the boat. he decided that presently somebody would appear rowing—whom he would ask to catch his boat for him. then he would tow it back to its old position.

presently peter came to the white gate of a bungalow and considered the advisability of telling a busy gardener who 194was mowing a lawn, about the boat. but it was difficult to frame a suitable form of address.

still further on a pleasant middle-aged woman who was trimming a privet hedge very carefully with garden shears, seemed a less terrible person to accost. peter said to her modestly and self-forgetfully; “i think there’s a boat adrift down there.”

the middle-aged woman peered through her spectacles.

“some one couldn’t have tied it up,” she said, and having looked at the boat with a quiet intelligence for some time she resumed her clipping.

her behaviour did much to dispel peter’s idea of calling in adult help.

when he looked again the boat had turned round. it had drifted out into the middle of the stream, and it seemed now to be travelling rather faster and to be rocking slightly. it was not going down towards the lock but away towards where a board said “danger.” danger. it was as if a cold hand was laid on peter’s heart. he no longer wanted to find the man with the ample face and tell him that his boat was adrift. the sun had set, the light seemed to have gone out of things, and peter had a feeling that it was long past tea-time. he wished now he had never seen the man with the ample face. would he have to pay for the boat? could he say he had never promised to mind it?

but if that was so why had he got into the boat and played about with it?

his left shoe and his left trouser-leg were very wet and getting cold.

a great craving for tea and home comforts generally arose in peter’s wayward mind. home comforts and forgetfulness. it seemed to him high time that he asked some one the way to limpsfield....

§ 16

when noakley and probyn arrived at maidenhead bridge in the late afternoon it seemed to them that they had done all that reasonable searchers could do, and that the best thing now was to take the train back to windsor. they were 195tired and they felt futile. and then, when hope was exhausted, they struck the trail of peter. the policeman at the foot of the bridge had actually noted him. “’ovvered about the bridge for a bit,” said the policeman, “and then went along the towing path. a little grave chap in grey flannel. funny thing, but i thought ’e might be a runaway.... something about ’im....”

so it was that noakley and probyn came upon the ample-faced man at the lock, in the full tide of his distress.

he was vociferous to get across to the weir. “the boat ought to have come down long ago,” he was saying, “unless it’s caught up in something. if he was in the boat the kid’s drowned for certain....”

noakley had some difficulty in getting him to explain what kid. it was difficult to secure the attention of the ample-faced man. in fact before this could be done he twice pushed back noakley’s face with his hand as though it was some sort of inanimate obstacle.

it was a great and tragic experience for probyn. they both went across by the lock to the island behind the lead of the lockkeeper and the ample-faced man. they came out in sight of the weir; the river was still full from the late september rains and the weir was a frothing cascade, and at the crest of it they saw an upturned boat jammed by the current against the timbers. a japanese umbrella circled open in a foamy eddy below, stick upward. the sun was down now; a chill was in the air; a sense of coming winter.

and then close at hand, caught in some weedy willow stems that dipped in the rushing water probyn discovered a little soddened straw hat, a little half-submerged hat, bobbing with the swift current, entangled in the willow stems.

it was unmistakable. it bore the white and black ribbon of high cross school.

“oh, my god!” cried probyn at the sight of the hat, and burst into tears.

“poor little peter. i’d have done anything for him!”

he sobbed, and as he sobbed he talked. he became so remorseful and so grossly sentimental that even noakley was surprised....

196

§ 17

when next morning mr. grimes learnt by a long and expensive telegram from mr. mainwearing, followed almost immediately by a long explanatory letter, that peter had run away from school and had been drowned near boulter’s lock, he was overcome with terror. he had visions of aunt phœbe—doubled, for he imagined aunt phyllis to be just such another—as an avenger of blood. at the bare thought he became again a storm of vibrations. his clerks in the office outside could hear his nails running along his teeth all the morning, like the wind among the reeds. his imagination threw up wild and hasty schemes for a long holiday in some inaccessible place, in norway or switzerland, but the further he fled from civilization the more unbridled the vengeance, when it did overtake him, might be. lady charlotte was still in england. on the day appointed and for two days after, the channel sea was reported stormy. all her plans were shattered and she had stayed on. she was still staying on. in a spasm of spite he telegraphed the dire news to her. then he went down to windsor, all a-quiver, to see that mr. mainwearing did not make a fool of himself, and to help him with the inquest on peter as soon as the body was recovered.

his telegram did have a very considerable effect upon lady charlotte, the more so as it arrived within an hour or so of a letter from mrs. pybus containing some very disconcerting news about joan. at midday came mr. mainwearing’s story—pitched to a high note of anglican piety. the body, he said, was still not found, “but we must hope for the best.” when mr. sycamore arrived at chastlands in the afternoon he found lady charlotte immensely spread out in her drawing-room as an invalid, with unwin on guard behind her. she lay, a large bundle of ribbon, lace, and distresses, upon a sofa; she had hoisted an enormous beribboned lace cap with black-and-gold bows. on a table close at hand were a scent-bottle, smelling-salts, camphor, menthol, and suchlike aids. there were also a few choice black grapes and a tonic. she meant to make a brave fight for it.

mr. sycamore was not aware how very dead peter was at 197chastlands and windsor, seeing that he was now also at the ingle-nook in a state of considerable vitality. it was some moments before he realized this localized demise. indeed it was upon an entirely different aspect of this war of the guardians that he was now visiting the enemy camp.

at first there was a little difficulty made about admitting him. cashel explained that lady charlotte was “much upset. terribly upset.” finally he found himself in her large presence.

she gave him no time to speak.

“i am ill, mr. sycamore. i am in a wretched state. properly i should be in bed now. i have been unable to travel abroad to rest. i have been totally unable to attend to affairs. and now comes this last blow. terrible! a judgment.”

“i was not aware, lady charlotte, that you knew,” mr. sycamore began.

“of course i know. telegrams, letters. no attempt to break it to me. the brutal truth. i cannot tell you how i deplore my supineness that has led to this catastrophe.”

“hardly supine,” mr. sycamore ventured.

“yes, supine. if i had taken up my responsibilities years ago—when these poor children were christened, none of this might have happened. nothing.”

mr. sycamore perceived that he was in the presence of something more than mere fuss about peter’s running away. a wary gleam came into his spectacles.

“perhaps, lady charlotte, if i could see your telegram,” he said.

“give it him, unwin,” she said.

“stole a boat—carried over a weir,” he read. “but this is terrible! i had no idea.”

“give him the letter. no—not that one. the other.”

“body not yet recovered,” he read, and commented with confidence, “it will turn up later, i feel sure. of course, all this is—news to me; boat—weir—everything. yes.”

“and i was ill already!” said lady charlotte. “there is reason to suppose my heart is weak. i use myself too hard. i am too concerned about many things. i cannot live for myself alone. it is not my nature. the doctor had commanded 198a quiet month here before i even thought of travel—literally commanded. and then comes this blow. the wretched child could not have chosen a worse time.”

she gave a gesture of despair. she fell back upon her piled pillows with a gesture of furious exhaustion.

“in the last twenty-four hours,” she said, “i have eaten one egg, mr. sycamore.... and some of that i left.”

mr. sycamore’s note of sympathy was perhaps a little insincere. “of course,” he said, “in taking the children away from their school—where they were at least safe and happy—you undertook a considerable responsibility.”

lady charlotte took him up with emphasis. “i admit no responsibility—none whatever. understand, mr. sycamore, once for all, i am not responsible for—whatever has happened to this wretched little boy. sorry for him—yes, but i have nothing to regret. i took him away from—undesirable surroundings—and sent him to a school, by no means a cheap school, that was recommended very highly, very highly indeed, by mr. grimes. it was my plain duty to do as much. there my responsibility ends.”

mr. sycamore had drifted quietly into a chair, and was sitting obliquely to her in an attitude more becoming a family doctor than a hostile lawyer. he regarded the cornice in the far corner of the room as she spoke, and replied without looking at her, softly and almost as if in soliloquy: “legally—no.”

“i am not responsible,” the lady repeated. “if any one is responsible, it is mr. grimes.”

“i came to ask you to produce your two wards,” said mr. sycamore abruptly, “because mr. oswald sydenham lands at southampton tonight.”

“he has always been coming.”

“this time he has come.”

“if he had come earlier all this would not have happened. has he really come?”

“he is here—in england, that is.”

lady charlotte gasped and lay back. unwin handed her the bottle of smelling-salts. “i have done nothing more than my duty,” she said.

199mr. sycamore became more gentle in his manner than ever. “as the person finally responsible—”

“no!”

“haven’t you been just a little careless?”

“mr. sycamore, it was this boy who was careless. i am sorry to say it now that he— i can only hope that at the last— but he was not a good boy. anything but a good boy. he had been altogether demoralized by those mad, violent creatures. he ran away from this school, an excellent school, highly recommended. and you must remember, mr. sycamore, that i was paying for it. the abnormal position of the property, the way in which apparently all the income is to be paid over to these women—without consulting me. well, i won’t complain of that now. i was prepared to pay. i paid. but the boy was already thoroughly corrupted. his character was undermined. he ran away. i wash my hands of the consequences.”

mr. sycamore was on the point of saying something and thought better of it.

“at any rate,” he said, “i have to ask you on behalf of mr. oswald sydenham to produce the other child—the girl.”

“she can’t be produced,” said lady charlotte desperately.

“that really does make things serious.”

“oh, don’t misunderstand me! the child is in excellent hands—excellent hands. but there are—neighbours. she was told to keep indoors, carefully told. what must she do but rush out at the first chance! she had had fair warning that there were measles about, she had had measles explained to her carefully, yet she must needs go and make friends with a lot of dirty little wretches!”

“and catch measles.”

“exactly.”

“that’s why—?”

“that’s why—”

“there again, lady charlotte, and again with all due respect, haven’t you been just a little careless? at that nice, airy school in surrey there was never any contagion—of any sort.”

“there was no proper religious teaching.”

200“was there any where you placed these children?”

“i was led to believe—”

she left it at that.

mr. sycamore allowed himself to point the moral. “it is a very remarkable thing to me, lady charlotte, most remarkable, that catholic people and church of england people—you must forgive me for saying it—and religious bodies generally should be so very anxious and energetic to get control of the education of children and so careless—indeed they are dreadfully careless—of the tone, the wholesomeness and the quality of the education they supply. and of the homes they permit. it’s almost as if they cared more for getting the children branded than whether they lived or died.”

“the school was an excellent school,” said lady charlotte; “an excellent school. your remarks are cruel and painful.”

mr. sycamore again restrained some retort. then he said, “i think it would be well for mr. oswald sydenham to have the address of the little girl.”

lady charlotte considered. “there is nothing to conceal,” she said, and gave the address of mrs. pybus, “a most trustworthy woman.” mr. sycamore took it down very carefully in a little notebook that came out of his vest pocket. then he seemed to consider whether he should become more offensive or not, and to decide upon the former alternative.

“i suppose,” he said reflectively as he replaced the little book, “that the demand for religious observances and religious orthodoxy as a first condition in schools is productive of more hypocrisy and rottenness in education than any other single cause. it is a matter of common observation. a school is generally about as inefficient as its religious stripe is marked. i suppose it is because if you put the weight on one thing you cannot put it on another. or perhaps it is because no test is so easy for a thoroughly mean and dishonest person to satisfy as a religious test. schools which have no claims to any other merit can always pass themselves off as severely religious. perhaps the truth is that all bad schools profess orthodoxy rather than that orthodoxy makes bad schools. nowadays it is religion that is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

“if you have nothing further to say than this secularist 201lecturing,” said lady charlotte with great dignity, “i should be obliged if you would find somewhere—some hall of science—... considering what my feelings must be... scarcely in the mood for—blasphemies.”

“lady charlotte,” said mr. sycamore, betraying a note of indignation in his voice; “this school into which you flung your little ward was a very badly conducted school indeed.”

“it was nothing of the sort,” said lady charlotte. “how dare you reproach me?”

mr. sycamore went on as though she had not spoken. “there was a lot of bullying and nasty behaviour among the boys, and the masters inflicted punishments without rhyme or reason.”

“how can you know anything of the sort?”

“on the best authority—the boy’s.”

“but how could he—”

“he was thrashed absurdly and set an impossible task for not answering to a silly nickname. there was no one to whom he could complain. he ran away. he had an idea of reaching limpsfield, but when he realized that night was coming on, being really a very sensible little boy, he selected a kindly-looking house, asked to see the lady of the house, and told her he had run away from home and wanted to go back. he gave his aunt’s address at the ingle-nook, and he was sent home in the morning. he arrived home this morning.”

lady charlotte made a strange noise, but mr. sycamore hurried on. “how this delusion about a boat and a weir got into the story i don’t know. he says nothing about them. indeed, he says very little about anything. he’s a reserved little boy. we have to get what we can out of him.”

“you mean to say that the boy is still alive!” cried lady charlotte.

“happily!”

“in face of these telegrams!”

“i saw him not two hours ago.”

“but how do you account for these telegrams and letters?”

mr. sycamore positively tittered. “that’s for mr. grimes to explain.”

“and he is alive—and unhurt?”

202“as fresh as paint; and quite happy.”

“then if ever a little boy deserved a whipping, a thoroughly good whipping,” cried lady charlotte, “it is master peter stubland! safe, indeed! it’s outrageous! after all i have gone through! unwin!”

unwin handed the salts.

mr. sycamore stood up. he still had the essence of his business to communicate, but there was something in the great lady’s blue eyes that made him want to stand up. and that little tussock of fair hair on her cheek—in some indescribable way it had become fierce.

“to think,” said lady charlotte, “that i have been put to all this unutterable worry and distress—”

she was at a loss for words. mr. sycamore appreciated the fact that if he had anything more to say to her he must communicate it before the storm burst. he stroked his chin thoughtfully, and began to deliver his message with just the faintest quality of hurry in his delivery.

“the real business upon which i came to you today, lady charlotte, has really nothing to do with this—escapade at all. it is something else. things have arisen that alter the outlook for those children very considerably. there is every reason to suppose that neither you nor the misses stubland are properly guardians of joan and peter at all. no. one moment more, lady charlotte; let me explain. two young germans, it would appear, witnessed the accident to the boat from the top of the capri headland. they saw mr. stubland apparently wrestling with the boatman, then the boat overset and the two men never reappeared. they must have dragged each other down. the witnesses are quite certain about that. but mrs. stubland, poor young lady, could be seen swimming for quite a long time; she swam nearly half-way to land before she gave in, although the water was very choppy indeed. i made enquiries when i was in naples this spring, and i do not think there would be much trouble in producing those witnesses still. they were part of the—what shall i call it?—social circle of that man krupp, the gunmaker. he lived at capri. if we accept this story, then, lady charlotte, mrs. stubland’s will holds good, and her 203husband’s does not, and mr. oswald sydenham becomes the sole guardian of the children....”

he paused. the lady’s square face slowly assumed an expression of dignified satisfaction.

“so long as those poor children are rescued from those women,” said lady charlotte, “my task is done. i do not grudge any exertion, any sacrifice i have made, so long as that end is secured. i do not look for thanks. much less repayment. perhaps some day these children may come to understand—”

unwin made a sound like the responses in church.

“i would go through it all again,” said lady charlotte—“willingly.... now that my nephew has returned i have no more anxiety.” she made an elegant early-georgian movement with the smelling-salts. “i am completely justified. i have been slighted, tricked, threatened, insulted, made ill ... but i am justified.”

she resorted again to the salts.