CHAPTER XIII—MR. PERRIN LISTENS WHILE THEY ALL MAKE SPEECHES
I.
THE next day, its brilliant sun and hard, shining cold, brought in its train great things.
The last day of the Christmas term was in some ways greater than the last day of the summer term, because it was a more private family affair.
One addressed one's ancestors, one arrayed one's traditions, one fashioned one's history, with flags and flowers and orations, but it was in the midst of the family that it was done.
Parents—mothers and fathers and cousins—were indeed there, but they, too, must recognize that it was not for their immediate individual Johnny or Charles that these things were done, but rather for the great worship and recognition of Sir Marmaduke Boniface.
Sir Marmaduke Boniface has hitherto received no mention in this slender history, but his importance in any chronicle of Moffatt's cannot be over-estimated. He was a Cornish; magnate, living and dying some hundred years ago, growing rich in the pursuit of jam, building large stone mansions out of that same delicacy, fat, pompous, and fading at last into a heavy stone monument in the corner of the church at the bottom of the Brown Hill—a great man in his day and in his place, amongst other things the founder of Moffatt's.
It was not very long ago; outside the confines of Cornwall he had been perhaps but vaguely recognized—perchance, perchance, the surest foundation of an extravagant record.... No matter, here we have our tradition, and let us make the best possible use of it.
But this Marmadukery—a hideous word, but it serves—spread far beyond that stout originator. It was the spirit of the public school, the esprit de corps signified by the School song (it began “Procul in Cornubia,” and was violently shouted at stated intervals during the year), the splendid appeal “to our fathers who have played in these fields before us”—this was the cry that these banners and orations signified. Moffatt's was not a very old school, true—but shout enough about some founder or other and the smallest boy will have tears in his eyes and a proud swelling at his breast. Sir Marmaduke becomes medieval, mystic, “the great, good man” of history, and Moffatt's is “one of our good old schools. There's nothing like our public school system, you know—has its faults, of course; but tradition—that 's the Thing.”
The stout figure of Sir Marmaduke hangs heavy over the day. Everyone feels it—everyone feels a great many other things as well, but Sir Marmaduke is the Thing.
He was the Thing in some vague, blind way even to Mrs. Comber, so that he kept coming into the confused but happy conversation to which she treated anxious parents on the morning of this great day. Mothers arrived in great numbers on these occasions, and these three great days of the three terms were to Mrs. Comber the happiest and most confused events in the year. They marked an approaching freedom, they marked the immediate return of her own children, and they marked an amazing number of things that ought to be done at once, with the confusing feeling about Sir Marmaduke also in the air.
But to-day she was happy; this horrible, terrible term was almost over. She had been so sure that something dreadful was going to happen, and nothing dreadful had happened, after all. They were safe—or almost safe—and her dear Isabel and Isabel's young man would be out of the place before they knew where they were. Then her own Freddie had last night, suddenly, before going to bed, taken her in his arms and kissed her as he had never kissed her before. Oh! things were going to be all right... they were escaping for a time at any rate. In the thought of the holidays, of a month's freedom, everything that had happened during the term was swiftly becoming faint and vague and distant.
Now she was smiling in her sitting-room with four mothers about her, one very fat and one very thin, one in blue and one in gray, and they all sat very stiff in their chairs and listened to what she had to say.
She had a great deal to say, because she was feeling so happy, and happiness always provoked volubility, but she made the mistake of talking to all four of them at once, and they, in vain, like anglers at a pool, flung, desperately, hurried little sentences at her, but secured no attention. Beyond and above it all was the shadow of Sir Marmaduke.
But her happiness, when she drove them at length from her, caught at the advancing figure of Isabel, with a cry and a clasp of the hand: “My dear!—no, we 've only got a minute, because lunch is early—one o'clock, and cold—you don't mind, do you, dear; but there's to be such a dinner to-night, and I've just had four mothers, and wise is n't the word for what I've been, although I confused all their children as I always do, bless their hearts. But, oh! the term's over, and I could go on my knees and thank Heaven that it is, because I 've never hated anything so much, and if it had lasted another week I should have struck off Mrs. Dormer's head for the way she's treating you, for dead sure certain—”
“Archie's not coming back, you know,” Isabel interrupted.
“Oh, my dear, I knew. He went and saw Moy-Thompson last week, and of course it's the wisest thing, and I only wish my Freddie was as young and we'd be off from here tomorrow.” She stopped and sighed a little and looked through the window at the hard, shining ground, the stiff, bare trees, the sharp outline of the buildings. “But it's no use wishing,” she went on cheerfully enough, “and we won't any of us think of next term at all but only of the blessed month of freedom that's in front of us.” Her voice softened; she put her hand on Isabel's arm. “All the same, my dear, I'm glad you and Archie are getting away from it all. It was touching him, you know.”
“Yes, I saw it,” the girl answered. “And I don't want him to schoolmaster again if he can help it. I think with father's help he 'll be able to get a Government office of some sort.” She hesitated, then said, smiling a little, “Are you and Mr. Comber—” She stopped.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber bruskily, “we are—and there 's no doubt that things are better than they have been. I suppose marriage is always like that: there 's the thrilling time at first, and then you find it is n't there any longer and you've got to make up your mind to getting along. Things rub you up, you know, and I'm sure I 've been as tiresome as anything, and then there's a good big row and the air's cleared—and shall I wear that big yellow hat or the black one this afternoon?”
“The black one fits the day better,” said Isabel absent-mindedly. She was wondering whether the time would ever come when she and Archie would feel ordinary about each other.
“But isn't it funny,” she went on, “that here we are at the end of the term, and already, with the holiday beginning, all our quarrels and fights about things like that silly umbrella are seeming impossible? It was all too absurd, and yet I was as angry as anyone.”
“It all comes,” said Mrs. Comber, “of our living too close. Now that we're going to spread out over the holidays, we 're as friendly as anything, although really, my dear, I hate Mrs. Dormer as much as ever”—which was difficult to believe when that lady arrived at a quarter-past two to pick up Mrs. Comber and Isabel and to go with them to the prize-giving.
Her dress was obviously very stiff and difficult, with a high, black neck to it, with little ridges of whalebone all around it, and out of this she spoke and smiled. The two ladies were very pleasant to one another as they walked down the path to the school hall.
“And where are you going for your Christmas vacation, Mrs. Comber?”
“I really don't know. It depends so much on the boys and the housemaid. I mean the housemaid's given notice, you know, because I had to speak to her about breathing when handing round the vegetables; and she gave notice on the spot, as they all do when I speak to them, and unless I can get another, I really don't think I shall ever be able to get away.”
“Really, what servants are coming to!” Mrs. Dormer was struggling with her collar like a dog. “Poor Mrs. Comber, I am so sorry—of course management's the thing, but we haven't all the gift and can't expect to have it.”
“And Mrs. Dormer, I do hope that you are going to be here over Christmas, so that we can keep each other company. It would be so nice if you and Mr. Dormer would come to us on Boxing evening, even if I have n't got a housemaid, and I heard of a very likely one from Mrs. Rose yesterday—quite a nice girl she sounded—who's been under-parlormaid at Colonel Forster's now for the last five years, and never a fault to find with her except a tendency to catching cold, which made her sniff at times.”
“Oh, thank you, dear Mrs. Comber; but my husband and I are hoping to spend a few days in London about that time. Otherwise we should have loved—”
For so much charity is the presence of Sir Marmaduke Boniface responsible.
II.
Sir Marmaduke, and all that his coming signified, was also responsible for clearing the air in other directions. Young Traill found, on this morning, that people were very much pleasanter to him than they had hitherto been. The coming holidays were obviously to be a truce, and, as he was not returning next term, it was an end of things so far as he was concerned. He could not feel proud of it all. The events of the term had shown him that he was not nearly so fine a fellow as he had thought himself. His pride, his temper, his irritation—all these things were lions with which he had never fought before: now they must always, for the future, be consciously kept in check.
He was tired, exhausted, worn-out. He was very glad that he was going away—now he would be able to have Isabel to himself, and they might, together, forget this horrible nightmare of a term. He looked on the buildings of Moffatt's as the iron prison of some hideous dream. He could not sleep for the thought of it. Last night he had had some bad dream... he could not remember now what it had been, but he had wakened suddenly in a great panic, to imagine that someone was closing his door. Of course it had only been the wind, but he hoped that he would sleep properly to-night.
At any rate he was glad that people were going to be pleasant to him on this last day of the term. The stout Miss Madder, Dormer, Clinton—they all seemed to be sorry that he was going, in spite of all the trouble that he had made. He did not think of Perrin....
Then he suddenly remembered Birkland. He would go and say good-by to him.
He climbed the steep stairs and found the little man busily packing. The floor was covered with packing cases, books lay about in piles, and the air was full of dust.
“Hullo!” said Traill, coughing in the doorway, “what's all this?”
“Hullo!” said Birkland, looking up. “I'm glad you 've come. I was coming round to see you, if you hadn't. I'm off for good.”
“Off for good!” Traill stared in astonishment.
“Well, for good or bad. The things that have happened this term have finally screwed me up to a last attempt. One more struggle before I die—nothing can be worse than this—I gave notice last week.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Traill.
“I don't know—it's mad enough, I expect. But I've saved a tiny hit of money that will keep me for a time. I shall have a shot at anything. Nothing can he as bad as this—nothing!”
He stood up, looking grim and scant enough in his shirt-sleeves with dust on his cheeks and his hair on end.
“Well, I'm damned!” said Traill. “Well, after all, I'm on the same game. I don't know what I'm going to do either. We 're both in the same box.”
“Oh!” said Birkland, “you've got youth and a beautiful lady to help you. I'm alone, and most of the spirit's knocked out of me after twenty years of this; but I'm going to have a shot—so wish me luck!”
“Why, of course I do,” said Traill, coming up to him. “We 'll do it together—we 'll see heaps of each other.”
“Ah! heaps!” said Birkland, shaking his head. “No, I'm too dry and dusty a stick by this time for young fellows like you. No, I'm better alone. But I 'll come and see you one day.”
“You were quite right,” said Traill suddenly, “in what you said about the place the evening at the beginning of the term when I came in to see you. You were quite right.”
“Poor boy,” said Birkland, looking at him affectionately, “you had a hard dose of it. Perhaps it was all for the best, really. It drove you out. If I'd been treated to that kind of row at the beginning, I mightn't have been here twenty years. And, after all, you met Miss Desart here.”
“Yes,” said Traill, “that makes it worth it fifty times over.”
“And now,” went on Birkland grimly, “this afternoon you shall see the closing scene of our pageant. You shall see our glory, our tradition. You will hear the head of our body state his satisfaction with the term's work, proclaim his delight at the friendly spirit that pervades the school, allude, through the great Sir Marmaduke Boniface, maker of strawberry jam, to our ancient and honorable tradition in which we all, from the eldest to the youngest, have our humble share.” He spread his arms. “Oh! the mockery of it! To get out of it!—to get out of it! And now, at last, after twenty years, I'm going. If it hadn't been for you, Traill, I believe I'd be here still. Well, perhaps it's to breaking stones on a road that I'm going... at any rate, it won't be this.”
And so here, too, Sir Marmaduke Boniface is remembered and has his influence.
III.
But with all these fine spirits, with all this stir and friendly feeling, with all this preparation for a great event, Mr. Perrin had little to do. This morning had, in no way, been for him a reconciling or a triumph at approaching freedom. After some three or four hours' troubled and confused sleep he awoke to the humiliating, maddening consciousness that he had again, now for the second time, missed his chance.
This one thing that he had thought he could do he had missed once more; not even at this last, blind vengeance was he any good.
To-morrow it would be too late; Traill, his enemy, would be gone, they would all be gone, and he would return, next term, the same insignificant creature at whom they had all laughed for so long; and then it would be worse than ever, because Traill would have escaped him, and in the distant ages it would be told how once there had been a young man, straight from the University, who had flung him to the ground and trampled on him, and beaten him, in all probability, with his own umbrella....
Ah, no! it was not to be borne—the thing must be done; there must be no missing of an opportunity this third time.
He heard the Repetition that morning with a vacant mind. Somerset-Walpole knew nothing about it, but for once in his life he suffered no punishment. Perrin thought afterwards that Garden Minimus had looked at him as though he would like to speak to him, but he could not think of Garden Minimus now—there were other more important things to think about.
Of course it must be done that night—there was only one night left. Afterwards he thought that he would go down to the sea and drown himself. He had heard that drowning was rather pleasant.
His mind was busy, all that morning, with the things that everyone would say afterwards. He wished very much that he could stay behind in some way that he might hear what they said. At any rate, they would be able to laugh at him no longer; he would appear to all of them as something terrible, portentous, awful... that, at any rate, was a satisfaction. Miss Desart, of course, would be sorry. That was a pity, because he did not wish to hurt Miss Desart; but, in the end, it would be all for the best, because she was much too good for a man like Traill and would only be unhappy if she married him.
What a scene there would be when they found Traill in bed with his throat cut!—no, they would not laugh at him again!
He spoke to nobody that morning; but, when Repetition was over, he went back to his room and sat there, quite still, in his chair, looking in front of him, with the door closed.
And then Traill came up and spoke to him just as he was on his way up to the school for the speeches.
He smiled and said, “Oh! I say, Perrin, do let us make it all up—now that term is over, and I 'm not coming back. I do hate to think that we should not part friends—it's all been my stupid fault, and I am so very sorry.”
But Perrin did not stop, nor answer. He walked straight up the path with his eyes looking neither to the left nor the right. After all, you couldn't shake hands with a man whose throat you were going to cut in the evening. He heard Traill's exasperated “Oh! very well,” and then he passed into Big School.
He stepped into the hall as unobtrusively as possible. The boys were always there first, and it was their way to cheer the masters as they came in. If you were very popular, they cheered you loudly; if you were unpopular, they cheered you not at all. Perrin had no illusions about his popularity, and the silence on his entrance did not therefore surprise him, but matters were not improved by the roar of cheering that greeted Traill. Ah, well! they would never cheer him again.
The boys were placed in rows down the room according to their forms, and the masters sat where they pleased. Perrin stationed himself in a corner by the wall at the back; he fastened his eyes on the platform and kept them there until the end of the ceremonies—no one noticed him—no one spoke to him—not for him were their songs and festivals.
The raised platform at the end of the hall was surrounded with flowers, and ranged against the wall, seated on hard, uncertain chairs were the Governing Body, or as many of the Governing Body as had spared time to come.
These were for the most part large, serious, elderly gentlemen, with stout bodies, and shining, beady eyes; their immovability implied that they considered that the business would be sooner over were they passive and as nonexistent as possible—they all wore a considerable amount of watch-chain.
In front of them was a long, black table, and on this were ranged the prizes—a number of impossibly shiny volumes that might have been biscuit-tins, for all the reading that they seemed to contain. Beside them in a wooden armchair was seated a little man like a sparrow, in patent leather boots and a high, white collar, whose smile was intermittent, but regular.
This was Sir Arthur Spalding, who had been asked to give away the prizes, because ten other gentlemen had been invited and refused. On the other side of the table the Rev. Moy-Thompson tried to express geniality and authority by the curves of his fingers and the bend of his head; he stroked his beard at intervals. In the front rows the ladies were seated: Mrs. Comber, large and smiling, in purple; Mrs. Moy-Thompson, endeavoring to escape her husband's eye, but drawn thither continually as though by a magnet; the Misses Madder, Mrs. Dormer, Isabel, and many parents.
The proceedings opened with a speech from the Rev. Moy-Thompson. He alluded, of course, in the first place to Sir Marmaduke Boniface, “our founder, hero, and example”; then by delicate stages to Sir Arthur Spalding, whose patent leather boots simply shone with delight at the pleasant things that were said. This preface over, he dilated on the successes of the term. K. Somers had been made a Commissioner of Police in Orang-Mazu-Za (cheers); W. Binnors had been fifteenth in an examination that had something to do with Tropical Diseases (more cheers); M. Watson had received the College Essay Prize at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge; and C. Duffield had obtained a second class in the first part of the Previous Examination at the same university (frantic cheering, because Duffield had been last year's captain of the Rugby football.) All this, Mr. Moy-Thompson said, was exceedingly encouraging, and they could not help reflecting that Sir Marmaduke Boniface, were he conscious of these successes, would be extremely pleased (cheers). Passing on to the present term, he was delighted to be able to say that never, in all his long period as headmaster, could he remember a more equable and energetic term (cheers). As a term it had been marked perhaps by no events of special magnitude, but rather by the cordial friendliness of all those concerned. Masters and boys, they had all worked together with a will. It was a familiar saying that “a nation was blessed that had no history”—well, that applied to such a term as the one just concluded (cheers). If he might allude once more to their excellent Founder, he was quite sure that Sir Marmaduke Boniface was precisely the kind of man to rejoice in this spirit of friendship (cheers). He must here allude for a moment to his staff. Surely a headmaster had never been surrounded with so pleasant a body of men—men who understood exactly the kind of esprit de corps necessary if a school's work were to be properly carried on; men who put aside all private feelings for the one great purpose of making Moffatt's a great school—that was, he truly believed, the one aim and object of every man and boy in Moffatt's—they might be sure that was the one and only aim and object that he ever kept before him. He had nothing more to do but introduce Sir Arthur Spalding, who would give away the prizes.
Mr. Moy-Thompson sat down, hot and inspired, amidst a burst of frantic cheering and clapping, but was suddenly chilled by the consciousness of Mr. Perrin's eyes glaring at him in the strangest manner across the room. He shifted his chair a little to the left, so that a boy's head intervened. The Governing Body at the conclusion of his speech moved their heads to the right, then to the left, smiled once, and resumed their immovability.
Sir Arthur Spalding was nervous, but found courage to say that he believed in our public schools—that was the thing that made men of us—he should never forget what he himself owed to Harrow. He should like to say one thing to the boys—that they were not to think that winning prizes was everything. We couldn't all win prizes; let those who failed to obtain them remember that “slow and steady wins the race.” It wasn't always the boys who won prizes who got on best afterwards. No—um—ah—he never used to win prizes at school himself. It wasn't always the boys—here he pulled himself up and remembered that he had said it before. There was something else that he'd wanted to say, but he'd quite forgotten what it was. Here he was conscious of Mr. Perrin's eyes and thought that he'd never seen anything so discouraging. He did not seem to be able to escape them. What a dangerous-looking man!
So he hurriedly concluded. Just one word he'd like to leave them from our great poet Tennyson—! He looked for the little piece of paper on which he had written the verse. He could not find it; he searched his pockets—no—where had he put it? Lady Spalding, in the third row, suffered horrible agonies. He recovered himself and was vague. He would advise them all to read Tennyson, a fine poet, a very fine poet—yes—and now he would give away the prizes.
IV.
Meanwhile, Mr. Perrin up to the commencement of Mr. Moy-Thompson's speech, had been merely conscious that a period of waiting had, so to speak, “to be put in.” He was not aware, in the very least, that his eyes were causing both Sir Arthur Spalding and Mr. Moy-Thompson acute discomfort; he was not aware that boys were looking at him, watching him with eager curiosity and nudging one another, speculatively. He was not aware that Isabel's eyes were upon him, eyes of pity “because he looked so queer, as though he had a headache.”
He stood there, beside the small round-eyed boys of the First and Second Forms, staring in front of him, without moving. The first words of Moy-Thompson's speech fell upon his ears unconsciously. It did not matter what they said, it did not matter what they thought, the case at issue was between himself and Traill and he faced that with an irritated impatience at these tiresome hours that kept him from his eager realization.
He began slowly to understand the things that Moy-Thompson was saying. And suddenly it was as though he had, morally and mentally, taken himself, forcibly, out of one room into another—out of a room in which there was only Traill's figure, gray, shadowy, by the door, otherwise dark, obscured by a clinging mist... a dangerous place... into a place that had for its furniture tangible things, things like this speech that Moy-Thompson was making, things that had to do with no especial figure, but rather with a vast, intolerable condition, with a system.
What was he saying?... How dare he? Perrin moved impatiently in his place. He looked at the row of faces raised to the platform, the silly, stupid faces. That Mrs. Thompson in her thin black dress with her bony neck; that silly, cheerful Mrs. Comber in her bulging, flaming garments; that Lady Spalding, so stiff and sharp, as though she were of any importance to anyone—all of them listening to these things that Moy-Thompson was saying, and believing them, believing these... Lies!
Traill was almost forgotten as Perrin stepped a little forward from the wall in order that he might hear better. The sight of Moy-Thompson's face up there on the platform smiling, so complacent, patriarchal with that white beard wagging at the end of it, brought the blood to his head. He clenched his thin hands. What were the other men doing that they could stand there and listen to these lies? Why did they not step forward and tell the truth to all those stupid women and those fat governors, to the little man with the shining boots on the platform? They knew that these thing were lies. Had not this term been hell, had it not been slow torture for them all, had not that man with the white beard full knowledge of these lies that he was telling? What was his private quarrel with Traill as compared with this monstrous injustice? He was pale now, with a long red mark against the white of his cheek. He had stepped right away from the wall and the small boys of the First and Second Forms were watching him.
It came upon him suddenly, like a flash from the lightning of heaven, that it was for him to escape these things. He had suffered more than the others, he knew better than they the things that were done in this place! Something was going round in his head like a red-hot wire, but he remembered, even at that confused moment, that scene a few days before in the common room, when they had all been so nearly stirred to revolt by Birkland. What if he were to break the bonds?... What rot! what rot! what rot! He could have shouted it to the roof—“Lies! Lies! Lies!”
There was a little stir and rustle as Moy-Thompson finished his speech—ladies' dresses moved against the chairs, boots slipped along the floor—and then a burst of cheering and clapping. Perrin rubbed his hands against one another—they were hot and dry and something rather like a bobbin on a latch went up and down in his throat—his eyes were burning. He moved a little further from the wall and a little nearer to the central gangway between the blocks of boys.
And now Sir Arthur Spalding stood nervously behind the glittering copies of “Tennyson's Poems,” Sir Robert Ball's “Wonders of the Heavens,” “The Works of Spencer,” and other volumes of our admirable classics. They began with the bottom of the school, and a small fat boy with a crimson face, boots that creaked like a badly-oiled door and were shaped like Chinese boats, staggered up to the platform. A lady, prominent for her size and large picture hat moved eagerly in her chair, clapped vehemently with her white gloves and so proclaimed herself a mother.
Sir Arthur Spalding had every intention of making a pleasant speech to each prizewinner—“something that they could remember afterwards, you know”—and began to say something to the small and red-faced boy, but was startled by the sound of eager, anticipatory breathing close to his ear. Turning round, he discovered that three more small boys were waiting anxiously for their turn and that others were coming up the room. He therefore hurried along with “Here you are, my boy. Remember that prizes aren't everything in life—hope you 'll read it—delightful book.”
Mr. Perrin watched these boys passing up and down with eager eyes. He must wait—now was not the time, but soon there would be another speech to thank the absurd man with the boots for giving the prizes away. To his excited fancy it seemed to him now that the rest of the staff were looking at him as though they knew what he was going to do. They must have felt as indignant as he did at those lies that this man had been telling them. But those governors should know the truth for once at any rate and in a way that they should not forget... strangely, in the back of his mind he wished that his mother could be present....
The senior boys were going up for their prizes now and were cheered according to their popularity. The Cricket captain, an enormous fellow, had secured something for Mathematics, and the room burst into a tempest of applause as he moved heavily up to the platform. He seemed very pleased with it all, Mr. Perrin thought, and received his prize with a flushed face and a friendly smile, and yet he had always been one of the leading rebels in the school. How easily these people were subdued, with a book and a few pleasant words—fool! Mr. Perrin's breath came quicker as he watched the boy stumble back to his seat.
Then, the prizes delivered, Mr. Moy-Thompson rose to say a few words. It had been very gratifying, he said, to all of them to have so distinguished a visitor as Sir Arthur Spalding amongst them that afternoon. It must have been difficult for Sir Arthur to have found time amongst so many engagements to come and spend an afternoon with them. (Cheers—Sir Arthur conveys a sense of hurry and confusion and looks at his shirt cuffs as though his engagements were written down there.) They on their part were greatly the gainers because there was no one in the room, however young, however inexperienced, who would not remember, as long as he lived, those words of encouragement and cheer. Indeed, it was not only for the winners of prizes that life was intended (here Mr. Moy-Thompson repeated many of Sir Arthur Spalding's remarks and the governors moved restlessly in their chairs), but (and here Mr. Moy-Thompson started on a new note) it might not be, perhaps, presumptuous of him to hope that it was not only for them that afternoon might have pleasant memories. For Sir Arthur Spalding also, he might hope, there would be times in the future when he would look back and remember that he had seen, for an instant at least, one of our British public schools in one of its happiest and most prosperous phases. He might flatter himself—
“It 's all lies!”
The voice cut into the quiet and solemnity of the occasion like a knife. To the small hoys of the First and Second Forms, tired already of the over-long ceremony, their eyes wandering restlessly about the room, there may perhaps have been no surprise. They had watched that strange master of theirs—“that old ass Pompous”—seen his edging from the wall into the center of the room, seen his eyes burning, his hands clenching and unclenching, his lips moving. To them that sudden cry, that sudden lifting of a fist as though he would strike the patriarch to his feet, could have come with no uncalculated emotion. But to the rest, to the governors heavily somnolent, to Sir Arthur Spalding plaintively desiring his tea, to Mrs. Moy-Thompson, to Mrs. Comber, the matrons, the staff, the rest of the school, it came driving through the place like a wind, “What? Who?...” They rose in their places, they uttered little cries, they stood on the forms, but no one stopped that voice—they were held, paralyzed.
And there were very few there who, in after days, forgot that strange figure, standing in the back of the room, the light of the high window upon him, his thin figure strung to its tensest, his hand raised, his gaunt cheeks white, his eyes on fire....
“It's lies, all lies!” The words came tumbling out one upon another. “I don't care—I must speak. Ladies and gentlemen,”—he caught his throat for a moment with his hand—“I know that this is no occasion for saying those things, but no one else has the courage—the courage. It is not true what he has been saying”—he pointed a vehement, trembling finger at the white patriarch. “We are unhappy here, all of us. We are downtrodden by that man—we are not paid enough—we are not considered at all—never considered—everything is wrong—we all hate each other—we hate him—he hates us—we are unhappy—it is all hell.”
He felt that his voice was quivering. He knew that he was shaking from head to foot. He cried once more querulously, “It is all hell here... hell!”
And then, suddenly, with head hanging and his hands dropping hopelessly to his side, he turned and, amidst an intense silence, left the room by the wide doors behind him.
There rose, like the murmur of the sea, from the body of the school:
“It 's Perrin.”
CHAPTER XIV—MR. PERRIN REACHES THE HEART OF HIS KINGDOM
I.
HE was entirely unconscious of the world about him as he hurried across the green quadrangles to his rooms. He saw no sky, nor flying clouds, nor grass, nor gray buildings. He thought not at all of any effect that his words may have on the people that had heard them; he had no interest in what had happened after he had left the building. The one fact was there before him, that he, Perrin, the despised, the mocked, the rejected, had flung into the midst of them all his bomb. They might hate him now; the governors and the rest might expel him furiously; they might deny indignantly his accusations, but they could not, any longer, ignore him. His little room was strangely cool and gray and quiet. Everything in it watched him with as sedate and respectable an air as though nothing tremendous had happened, the hooks, the old chairs, the little specks of dust floating in the sunlight, and then suddenly something gleaming from beneath the pile of examination papers on the table. He turned the papers over, and there, shining against the old, worn-out tablecloth, was the knife. He stared at it and then very slowly and thoughtfully put it away in a drawer. He did not want it now. He was surprised, amazed, at the indifference with which he looked at it. That morning it had meant so much, now——
It was not Traill that he was going to kill; it was something larger, greater, more sweeping—a system, and at the head of the system, a tyrant.
He walked up and down his room with his hands tightly clenched behind his back. As the minutes passed he grew cooler and more collected. What would they do? They could not pass over so public a defiance; there must be an enquiry, there would have to be witnesses. The curious illusions that had been with him during these last weeks—the illusions about the other Mr. Perrin, for instance, and that strange fancy about Traill being always in the room—had vanished suddenly. Things were as they most certainly appeared to be; that table, those chairs were most solidly there, and Mr. Perrin touched them with his hands and smiled at their solidity. Then also it was odd that those incidents that had seemed only that morning of such paramount importance were now insignificant. That quarrel over the umbrella, for instance—really, how absurd! When one was a rebel, a Prometheus, one of the Titans, why then this ignominious quarreling was a small affair. He pushed all the question of Traill aside with almost a contemptuous smile. There were bigger things now in the world.
What would they do? That was now the all-important question. What would the staff do? Perrin sat in his armchair by his smoldering fire and thought about them all. Birk-land with his superior sarcasm, Comber with his bullying patronage, West the vulgarian, the puppy Traill; now they would see that there was someone who could do more talking; now they would find that they owed their deliverance to someone whom they had hitherto despised.
He was elated; he was triumphant. He saw himself in the midst of that hall, standing before them all, denouncing that iniquity....
The afternoon drew to evening. Many voices had sounded below his window, but the summer evening was now drawing, softly and quietly, about the world. Voices came like notes of music at long intervals across the darkening lawns. It was nearly seven o'clock and presently it would be time for chapel. The staff always gathered in the Senior common room before chapel and they would all be there now. As he paced his room Mr. Perrin saw them gathered there, talking.
He felt an eager impatience to know what they were saying. Of course they would be talking about him, discussing it all. His impatience grew. He felt that he could not go into chapel until he had heard what they had to say. He saw them turn as he entered the room, their sudden silence, and then their eager coming forward. They would tell him their plans; perhaps they had already prepared a written protest supporting his own outburst.
He must go. He hurriedly put on his gown and hastened with shining eyes and a beating heart to the Upper School.
He heard, before he opened the door, the buzz of voices, and he entered the room proudly. They were all gathered about the fire—all of them, he thought, except Traill. Birkland was in the middle of them and they seemed to be all talking at once, West's voice above the others.
“Oh, but of course he 's dotty. It's been coming on for years.”
And the other voices came together:
“Well, they ought to have kept him out of the place. It's a disgrace, a thing like that happening.”
“Moy-Thompson's face! I wouldn't have missed it for all the holidays in the world!”
“No, but really someone ought to have stopped him. He seemed to have got started before anyone saw him.”
“Little Spalding thought bombs were being flung about by the look of him.”
But Perrin was too greatly elated to pay very much attention to these speeches. He had heard nothing. He advanced up the long room with a smile and his head held high, his gown swinging behind him.
They had heard the door open and now they stood almost in a line, by the fire, watching him come up the room. They were quite silent and made no movement. They watched him.
He was stopped in his advance, suddenly, by their faces. They were watching him, he thought, curiously.
His confidence began to leave him.
“It's nearly chapel time,” he said uneasily. “Hum! ha!”
There was no answer.
“Well, Birkland, I 've put your words into deeds, haven't I? Yes, indeed, hum, ha. I thought it an admirable opportunity.” He stopped again.
Birkland murmured something. West and Comber had turned away and were looking at the papers.
Perrin felt that he was growing angry. It was so like them to grudge him any little importance that he might have obtained. They were jealous, of course, and wished that they had had the courage to step forward. They; had missed their opportunity and were indignant with him now because he had seized his—well!
“Yes,” he said, the color mounting to his cheeks; “I flatter myself that something will come of it. It will be difficult for them, I think, to disregard that altogether—hum—yes.”
There was still silence and then, at last, Birkland said slowly:
“Going to chapel to-night, Perrin?”
“Chapel?” sharply. “Yes, of course.”
Again silence. Then Comber said pompously:
“Look here, Perrin. Take advice from me and have a good rest. I should go to bed now if I were you. It 's a good holiday that you 're wanting. Take my advice. Bed's the place—shouldn't go to chapel if I were you—hem.”
“No, shouldn't go to chapel,” repeated Dormer slowly.
Perrin began to breathe qnickly. “What do you mean?” he cried. “Why shouldn't I go to chapel? What do you mean about a holiday?”
“You 're tired,” Birkland said qnickly. “That's what it is. We're all tired—overdone. We've all been feeling it for weeks. It's a good thing term's come to an end. I knew something would happen. You 're tired, Perrin.”
“Tired!” He turned snarling upon them, his eyes flaming. “Tired! It's jealousy, that's what it is! You don't like to see me taking the lead—you hate my coming to the front. You've always hated me, the lot of you. You 're jealous, that's what it is. You 're cruel”—his voice suddenly broke—“I was helping you all. That's why I spoke—and now—”
And then with head hanging, he rushed blindly from the room.
II.
Back to his room again, muttering, “Jealous, that's what they are—beasts! Jealous! My God, they 're beasts!”
He lit his lamp with trembling fingers and then on the table he saw a note. It was from the school-sergeant and ran thus:
'.ir:
Mr. Moy-Thompson would be greatly obliged if you could find it possible to step round and see him for a few minutes directly after chapel....
So it had come. He flung off his gown and stared at the dark frame of the window. The chapel bell was clanging its last notes—the boys from the Lower School passed under his window in a stream and their noisy chatter came up to him. It was a wonderful night—the dark-swelling trees rose in dim clouds against the silver field of stars. The bells stopped and very faintly he could hear the organ. He was conscious that his head was aching and he flung the window wide open and drank in the evening scents. He had passed with all the incoherent swiftness of his feverish brain from the insults that he had received in the Senior common room to his approaching interview with the headmaster. Let them rot! He might have known that that would be the way that they would take it—he was a fool to have expected anything else. His mind sped on to the future. He would force them all to see the kind of man that he was. He must brace himself up for this interview with Moy-Thompson, because this was to be the decisive crisis of the battle. When he had shown him how determined he was, when he had made it evident that he would withdraw no jot or tittle of his accusation, then indeed he would have the place at his feet. To-morrow, when they had all heard of this interview, they would sound a very different note.
He leaned out of his window, drinking in the air. He wished that he were cooler and that he could think more connectedly. He did not know why it was, but as soon as he had caught a thought and fixed it there securely, and had hastened after another, the first one was gone again.
His thoughts were like fish in a pool. And then suddenly he thought of Traill—-Traill I Why was it that for weeks Traill had been his one thought and that now he did not count at all? There was a connection somewhere between all that personal quarrel and now this sudden public outburst. It had its link, but as he pressed his hand to his head he confessed that he was bewildered, that that scene in the common room had been a check and that he scarcely knew, in this bewilderment, what it was that he was going to do.
He sat down in his armchair with the open window behind him, although it was midwinter. He could hear them singing the End of Term Hymn—“Lord, dismiss us with Thy Blessing”—and singing it too with vigor that, exultantly, proclaimed the first happy glimpse of approaching freedom. He shook his shoulders with irritation and got up and closed the window. Then he sat down again and considered the matter.
Moy-Thompson's reception of him offered two possible alternatives. He could be humble or he could he arrogant—he could plead for mercy or he might try to bully Perrin into submission. Those were the only two possibilities. In the first case one would of course be as lenient as possible. Perrin smiled a very bitter smile as he thought of this. There would be things of course on which he would insist, demands that he must make, but he would treat Moy-Thompson gently and if certain concessions were made he would promise to say no more to the governors.
On the other hand, if Moy-Thompson attempted to bully.... Perrin gripped the sides of his chair—well, he would find that he had made a mistake. The pale face flushed, the tired eyes glowed, the thin body trembled—in half an hour there would be this battle!
In half an hour!—in less than half an hour! Already the opening of the chapel doors flung the organ in a fresh burst of sound upon the evening breeze. The boys once more passed the windows, shouting and singing. On ordinary evenings they were disciplined and quiet and passed into preparation in a proper state of chastened docility; but to-night was the last night of the term—there was to be a concert—and by this time to-morrow—
They shouted as they ran into the lighted buildings and then once more there was silence—the organ had ceased and the chapel doors were closed.
Perrin put on his gown and went out. He was stepping at last into the very heart of the business. He seemed to see that in reality his enemy had been Moy-Thompson from the beginning. That old man, with the ingenuity of the devil, had put young Traill in front of him and Perrin had thought that it was Traill that he was fighting, but now he saw, with extraordinary clarity, that Moy-Thompson was behind everything. That spider with that dark study for his web was spinning, always spinning—more effectively than any of them knew. In his own room with its dim light, surrounded by such silence, the shadows of that other room into which he was going frightened him against his will. He was determined that he would, in no way, surrender or give in, but at the back of his mind was an undefined suspicion that, in some fashion, Moy-Thompson would get the better of him.
He wished, as he went across the quadrangle, that his heart was not beating quite so quickly and that his brain was clearer. Moy-Thompson's study was dark save for the circle of light from the lamp on his table by the fire; the firelight leapt and danced, flinging the classical busts on the high shelves into a sudden derisive proximity to the white beard at the table, playing with the tables and chairs, dancing with flashes of golden light up and down the heavy, somber carpet.
Moy-Thompson was writing gravely, intently, at the table, and did not raise his head until he heard the click of the door. Then he put his pen down slowly, looked up and smiled.
“Ah, Mr. Perrin—do come in. I hope it wasn't inconvenient for you coming at this time? Sit down, won't you?”
Perrin pulled himself up suddenly; his thin nervous figure showed haggard and worn in the firelight. What did this mean? He tried to collect his thoughts. No, thank you, he would rather stand.
“But you must be tired—you must indeed. Really, I insist—this easy-chair by the fire.” Perrin, clutching his mortar-board between his hands, sat down.
“I'm sure you 'll excuse me whilst I just address this letter—hum, yes—only a minute.” A silence, during which some heavy clock ticked solemnly in the distance: “Of course, he 'll wait—of course, he 'll wait—of course, he 'll wait.”
At last, Moy-Thompson swung round, away from the table and faced Perrin. His heard seemed to bristle with friendliness. He was very large, his clothes were very black, his fingers were very long.
“Now, Mr. Perrin, I'm not going to keep you long—really, only a few moments, hum, yes. I'm sure you 're tired after a long day. But come, Mr. Perrin (this, leaning forward genially), we've got to discuss this matter, you know. Let us be friendly about it. I can assure you that I have nothing but the most friendly feelings towards you in this matter.”
Perrin flushed and half rose from his chair. “No, please, Mr. Perrin, I beg of you—please be seated—hum—I really am most anxious to prove to you that I am nothing but friendly in this matter.” Moy-Thompson paused and tapped his nails, with sharp little rattling noises, one against the other. “Now, Mr. Perrin, I'm sure you must agree with me that a disturbance like that of this afternoon is exceedingly unusual and I may say with very considerable truth that no one who was present was more completely and remarkably surprised than myself. I do not pretend,” he went on with a smile and lifting a deprecating hand towards the fire, “that I am so pleasantly self-assured as to believe that there is no unsound plank in this good ship of ours; there are many things, I am sure, that would be the better for a newer and a younger hand, but I had supposed—and naturally supposed, I think—that any complaints that there were would be brought to the committee or myself privately. From time to time complaints have been brought to me and I may say that I have always dealt with them to the best of my ability, but—” here Moy-Thompson paused, looked at Perrin, and then smiled very gently—“do you know that you are the very last man whom I should have expected to have come to me with any complaint of any kind?”
Perrin had made no reply, had attempted to make no reply to this long speech. He sat in his chair without any other movement than the regular and rapid turning of the mortarboard between his hands. His head was bent towards the floor. At this last word he looked up as though he would reply and half started from his chair.
Moy-Thompson held forward his large white hand.
“No—please, a moment—may I not explain myself? although it needs surely no explanations. I mean the admirable relationship that has always, I believe, existed between us. I must confess that if I had yesterday been questioned as to which of my staff I could most securely trust and honor I should have named yourself.” He paused and then slowly added, “I need scarcely remind you that it is only a fortnight since there passed between us, in this very room, an interview of the most friendly and confidential description.”
There was no word from the chair.
“You must remember that, during the many years that have passed since you have been with me here you have made no kind of complaint. You have had many, very many opportunities, for voicing things freely to me. I have always been frank with you—you 've seized none of them. All the more amazing, the more compelling my surprise then, at what occurred to-day.”
At last there was a pause that demanded a reply. The room was filled with silence and neither man moved. Perrin was striving to clear his brain. What was he to say? What had he come to say? Where were all the things that he had thought out so carefully in his study? Moreover, it was true; it was all amazingly true. They had been friends, he and Moy-Thompson, all these years, great friends. Other members of the staff may have rebelled and quarreled and disputed, but he had always supported authority. He remembered now with a kind of dazed surprise the pleasure that he had taken in those little quarter-of-an-hour interviews in that very room. This momentous and horrible fact rose now before him and froze any reply that he might make. He had been Moy-Thompson's devoted henchman for twenty years—was he the right man to head a rebellion now?
In spite of the long silence he made no reply.
“Well,” said Mr. Moy-Thompson, rubbing one hand against another, “I see that you admit, Mr. Perrin, that there is justice in some of my remarks. These things are facts—that you have been twenty years without a complaint, and that until this afternoon you and I (here more rubbing of the hands) were working shoulder to shoulder at a hard task that demanded our friendly cooperation. Then suddenly there is this outbreak; an outbreak unprecedented in the annals of our school; an outbreak for which there is no obvious reason; an outbreak that is in its nature, I should imagine, extremely foreign to your own character and habits—” Mr. Moy-Thompson paused an instant and then suddenly, “Well, what is the only explanation? What can be the only explanation?”
Still no word from Mr. Perrin.
“Well,” continued Mr. Moy-Thompson genially, “overwork, of course. Overwork. We have perhaps all noticed that, during these last weeks, things were being a little too much for you—hum—yes—natural enough, natural enough. We 're all tired at times and it's a long time since you were out of harness—yes, indeed.”
“I 'm not tired.”
“Ah, well, perhaps the onlookers, in some cases, see the most of the game. But you must admit that it affords an admirable and sufficient excuse for to-day's little episode—the only excuse indeed (this a little more sharply)—but an excuse that we all of us—I speak for others as well as myself—are only too ready to seize. A holiday, my friend, a holiday—there we have our doctor's medicine.”
Out of the waters of misery that were closing about him the man raised his head. Of all the many things that had come upon him this was the worst. He faced it with despair—he knew as he heard the other man's words pour along like a river that he had nothing to say. How could he make a fine rebel when the day before yesterday he had been assisting and abetting? How could he make a fine rebel when they all thought that he was merely overdone? How could he make a fine rebel when instead of the terror that he thought that he had brought he found only a gentle contempt and the opinion that he was tired and needed a holiday?
Somewhere, in the back attics of his brain, something was telling him that this was not quite so simple as it appeared—that this old man in his dark room was playing as elaborate a game as did ever Philip II in the dark recesses of his palace at Madrid. And he saw, \ although his head was buzzing, that there was, in that plan, good wisdom of a kind. To have Perrin back again, in the chains of the old familiar authority, was to have Perrin silenced, humbled—finally quieted. But how was he to battle with these things? They were too clever for him; he knew that the accumulated years of tradition behind him, the heaping together of those many, many times when he had knocked on that study door, the solemn consciousness of the obsequious attentions that he had so often paid to that white beard, these things rose and defeated him—defeated him on the last occasion that the chances of battle were to be offered him.
Yet he tried to say something.
He spoke in a tired, passionless voice.
“I had reason,” he said slowly, “for what I did. I meant what I said and I mean it now. You have made this place hateful to all of us and I want to hand in my resignation now. I had hoped that what I did this afternoon might have brought matters to a head, might have helped us all to act together as a body. But they 're jealous of me—if anyone else had done it—”
His head dropped—his voice ceased. Then he repeated, drearily, “I want to hand in my resignation.”
The clock ticked on solemnly. At last Moy-Thompson spoke, very gently and a little sadly:
“I am sorry, extremely sorry, if, after all these years you feel that I have acted unjustly towards you, but I hope that you will not think me unfriendly—my last wish is to appear in any way unfriendly—if I say that this opinion of yours—a little hurriedly assumed, perhaps—owes something to the mental fatigue to which I have already alluded. All I beg of you is to wait before you hand in your resignation, to wait until you are stronger both in mind and body. I think I may say that the governors will only too readily allow you a holiday during next term—when the summertime is with us you will return alert and fresh in body and mind.”
Tick—tick—tick went the clock—“Here's a good offer—Here's a good offer.”
“I wish to hand in my resignation,” said Mr. Perrin.
“Of course if you will, you will. I can only say that we shall all be genuinely sorry. Let me, at any rate, implore you to wait before making your decision. In a few weeks' time perhaps—”
“I meant every word that I said this afternoon. This place is scandalous—scandalous—”
“I regret that you feel that. I'm extremely sorry that you feel about it as you do. But at least let me beg you to wait for a few weeks. Write to me. Write to the governors—write to anyone you please. But wait—let me urge you to wait.”
Mr. Moy-Thompson's hand was laid upon Perrin's knee. Again there was silence. Then at last:
“Very well. What does it matter? I will wait. I haven't the strength to break with anything. I'm no use—no good.” He got to his feet and then suddenly broke out:
“But I tell you, I'm right. You 're too clever for me, but I'm right. What I've said is true, it's all true. You 're a devil. You've had us all at your mercy for years and years. You've worked us against one another until you've rubbed all our courage and finer pieces off us and you 're pleased—you 're pleased. You've had a fine life of it—you, a God's parson—and you've made money and you've broken hearts and you've eaten and drunk—and you 're too clever for us, but there's hell for you somewhere. I see it and I know it.”
He broke away and burst stumbling from the room.
It may be that for once the man whom he left heard the sound of some judgment in his ears, for he stood, long after every stir in the world about him had passed away, staring, without movement and afraid.
III.
But Perrin had no exultation in him; it was not of Moy-Thompson he was thinking. The last stones of his fortress had been removed from his defenses and he stood utterly naked to the world.
He did not attempt now to gather his resources about him. He cared no more for any face that he might present to the world. He had reached the heart of his kingdom and he saw that he was no good—no good at all—an utterly useless man.
He had not even the pluck to defy Moy-Thompson, to fling his resignation in his face. He was no good.
He was very cold when he reached his room, and as he pushed back the door he saw Traill. Traill was standing in the middle of the room, looking very shy.
Perrin was not glad or sorry to see him. He had no feeling about him at all.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening.”
“Won't you sit down?”
“No, thank you. I only came in for a moment.”
“Oh, all right. What is it?”
“Oh! Only I wanted to tell you—that—well—oh, that I thought you were awfully plucky this afternoon.”
“Oh! Thank you. It wasn't plucky really—it was a very foolish thing to do.”
“No—really—the other fellows did n't understand—”
“Oh, yes! They understood very well.”
Traill paused. He obviously hated the whole affair but was determined to go through with it.
“Well, I say, I'm leaving to-morrow, you know—not coming back—and I thought that it would be a pity if we parted—well, sick with each other. What do you say? We've had one or two turn-ups, but we 're friends, are n't we?”
“Of course.”
“Shake hands, will you?”
They shook hands.
“Right you are. Look Isabel and me up in town one day, won't you? Always awfully pleased. Well, I must be going.”
And, with a sigh of relief, Traill moved away.
But what did the boy know, what could the boy know, of the man's utter despair as he sat there through the night? Traill went out to his life. “He had made it up with the chap,” but Perrin, in the dark, was looking, with staring eyes, at Himself. At last, that gray figure that had haunted him so closely during these weeks was with him face to face.
And, with the coming dawn, he knew what it was that he would do.