The Hill Part 38

And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result.

But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to convince a friend that he would attempt anything to prove his friendship.

That night they went together to Scaife's room. The second-best room in the Manor, situated upon the first floor, it overlooked the back of the garden, where there was a tangled thicket of laurustinus and rhododendron. Scaife had spent much money in making this room as comfortable as possible. It had the appearance of a man's room, and presented all the characteristics of the man who lived in it. Everything connected with Scaife's triumphal march through the School was preserved. On the walls were his caps, fezes, and cups. You could hardly see the paper for the framed photographs of Scaife and his fellow "bloods." Scaife as cricketer, Scaife as football-player, Scaife as racquet-player and athlete, stared boldly and triumphantly at you. He had a fine desk covered with ma.s.sive silver ornaments. Upon this, as upon everything else in the room, was the hall-mark of the successful man of business. The papers, the pens and pencils, the filed bills and letters, the books of reference, spoke eloquently of a mind that used order as a means to a definite end. All his books were well bound. His boots were on trees. His racquets were in their press. Had you opened his chest of drawers, you would have found his clothes in perfect condition. Obviously, to an observant eye, the owner of this room gave his mind to details, because he realized that on details hang great and successful enterprises.

Scaife stared at John, but welcomed him civilly enough. Cricket, of course, explained this unexpected visit. As Desmond blurted out what was in his mind, Scaife frowned; then he laughed unpleasantly.

"And so I told Jonathan," concluded Desmond.

"So you told Jonathan," repeated Scaife. "Are you in the habit of telling Jonathan,"--the derisive inflection as he p.r.o.nounced the name warned John at least that he had much better have stayed away--"things which concern others and which don't concern him?"

"If you're going to take it like that----"

"Keep cool, Caesar. I'll admit that you mean well. I should like to hear what Verney has to say."

At that John spoke--haltingly. Fluent speech upon any subject very dear to him had always been difficult. He could talk glibly enough about ordinary topics; his sense of humour, his retentive memory, made him welcome even in the critical society of Eaton Square, but you know him as a creature of unplumbed reserves. The matter in hand was so vital that he could not touch it with firm hands or voice. He spoke at his worst, and he knew it; concluding an incoherent and slightly inarticulate recital of the reasons which ought to keep Scaife in his house at night with a lame "Two heads ought to prevail against one."

Scaife showed his fine teeth. "You think that? Your head and Caesar's against mine?"

The challenge revealed itself in the derisive, sneering tone.

John shrugged his shoulders and rose. "I have blundered; I am sorry."

"Hold hard," said Scaife. He read censure upon Desmond's ingenuous countenance. Then his temper whipped him to a furious resentment against John, as an enemy who had turned the tables with good breeding; who had gained, indeed, a victory against odds. Scaife drew in his breath; his brows met in a frown. "You have not blundered; and you are not sorry,"

he said deliberately. "I'm not a fool, Verney; but perhaps I have underrated your ability. You're as clever as they make 'em. You knew well enough that you were the last person in the world to lead me in a string; you knew that, I say, and yet you come here to pose as the righteous youth, doing his duty--eh?--against odds, and accepting credit for the same from Caesar. Why, it's plain to me as the nose upon your face that in your heart you would like me to be sacked."

Desmond interrupted. "You are mad, Demon. Take that back; take it back!"

"Ask him," said Scaife. "He hates me, and common decency ought to have kept him out of this room. But he's not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own way. Soften it, make pap of it, if you like, but get an answer."

"Jonathan, it is not true, is it? You don't like Scaife; but you would be sorry, very sorry, to see him--sacked."

"I'm glad you've not funked it," said Scaife. "You've put it squarely.

Let him answer it as squarely."

John was white to the lips, white and trembling; despicable in his own eyes, how much more despicable, therefore, in the eyes of his friend, whose pa.s.sionate faith in him was about to be scorched and shrivelled.

Scaife began to laugh.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't laugh!" said Desmond. "Jonathan, I know you are too proud to defend yourself against such an abominable charge."

"He's not a liar," said Scaife.

"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.

"You have wished that he might be sacked?"

"Yes."

John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other was too impetuous, too inexperienced to interpret. Into that look of pa.s.sionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame.

Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife would prevail against himself--because, with unerring instinct, he had apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from Caesar's path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish success. John lowered his eyes and walked from the room.

When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations.

They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Caesar would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he did--if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower, looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.

But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.

[35] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair.

Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of beagles at the foot of the Hill.

CHAPTER XII

_"Lord's"_

"There we sat in the circle vast, Hard by the tents, from noon, And looked as the day went slowly past And the runs came all too soon; And never, I think, in the years gone by, Since cricketer first went in, Did the dying so refuse to die, Or the winning so hardly win."

"My dear Jonathan, I'm delighted to see you. You know my father, I think?" It was the Caterpillar that spoke.

John shook hands with Colonel Egerton.

The three were standing in the Members' Enclosure at Lord's. The Caterpillar, gorgeous in frock-coat, with three corn-flowers[36] in the lapel of it, was about as great a buck as his sire, quite as conspicuous, and, seemingly, as cool. It happened to be a blazing hot day, but heat seldom affected Colonel Egerton.

"By Jove," he said to John, "I'm told it's a certainty this year, and I've come early, too early for me, to see a glorious victory. There's civil war raging on the top of the Trent coach, I give you my word."

"We've won the toss," said John.

"Ah, there's Charles Desmond, an early bird, too."

He bustled away, leaving John and the Caterpillar together. The great ground in front of them was being cleared. One could see, through the few people scattered here and there, the wickets pitched in the middle of that vast expanse of lawn, and the umpires in their long white coats.

Upon the top of the steps, in the middle of the pavilion, the Eton captain was collecting his Eleven. The Duffer, who had got his Flannels at the last moment, came up and joined John and the Caterpillar.

"The Manor's well to the front," said the Caterpillar. "By Jove! I never thought to see Fluff in the Eleven."

"Fluff came on tremendously this term," the Duffer replied.

"Of course the Kinlochs are a cricketing family."

"Good joke the brothers playing against each other," said John.

"Warde," the Duffer nodded in the direction of Warde, who was talking with Charles Desmond and Colonel Egerton, "has worked like a slave. He made a cricketer out of Fluff and a scholar out of Jonathan. He's so mad keen to see us win, that he's given me the jumps."