The Loom of Youth Part 34

"They don't want to know the truth," he said, "they are afraid to hear it. 'Tell us lies,' that's what they say. 'Lull us into a false security. A big bust-up is coming soon, but keep it off till after we are gone.' They know their house is built on sand, running out into the river. They want to barricade their own tiny houses for a little. I want to go and search for the big firm land, but they are too comfortable on their cushions and fine linen to dare to move. Oh, prophesy smooth things!"

Gordon listened intently to it all. Ferrers was his ideal. Often they would talk of books: of the modern novel; of Compton Mackenzie, in whom idealism and realism were one; of Rupert Brooke, the coming poet, who was to make men believe in the beauties of this earth, instead of hankering after an immaterial hereafter; of the Elizabethan drama, of Marlowe, Beaumont, Webster. They were very wonderful, those hours.

Gordon felt that he had at last, after wandering far, come to his continuing city. Glancing back over his last two years, he used to laugh and say:

"I don't regret them; I was happy; and the only thing to regret is unhappiness. But I have outgrown them; they did not last. They were what Stephen Phillips would number among the 'over-beautiful, quick fading things.' They were good days, though. But I am happier now. I can see the future spreading out before me. Next winter Hunter will be captain, but I shall be second in the team and lead the forwards. It will be a year of preparation. Then will come my year of captaincy. All the things I wanted seem falling into my hands. 'Life is sweet, brother,' life is sweet!"

And, looking back, it seemed as if in the wild orgy of Pack Monday Fair he had finally burnt the old garments and put on the new. That day had been the funeral pyre of his old life; and, like Sardanapalus, it had died of its own free will. A glorious end; no anti-climax. But the future was still more glorious. When he watched the morning sun flicker white on the broad Eversham road from the station to the Abbey, the leaves breaking on the lindens, the dim lights waking in the chapel on Sunday, he saw how far he had outgrown his old self. Now he had begun to perceive what life's aim should be--the search for beauty. Tester had been right when he said that beauty was the only thing worth having, the one ideal time could not tarnish. And yet Tester was not satisfied. The hold of the world was too strong on him. He could see where others were going wrong, but he himself was all astray, at times morbidly wretched, at others hilarious with excitement. It was merely a question of temperament. Gordon saw stretching before him the fulfilment of his hopes. There was no niche for failure. His destiny would unroll smoothly like a great machine; he was at peace, in sympathy with a world of beautiful ideas and dreams. At times he would feel an unreasoning anger with the Public School system, but his rage soon cooled down. After all, it had left him at the last unscathed, and was in the future to bring many gifts. Others might be broken on the wheel; but he was still sufficiently an egoist, sufficiently self-centred to be indifferent to them. He had come through, with luck perhaps, but still he had come through. That was all that mattered. He had not read Matthew Arnold's _Rugby Chapel_. If he had, he might have recognised himself in the pilgrim who had saved only himself, while the world was full of others, like the Chief, who were "bringing their sheep in their hand." But probably even if he had read the poem at that time, he would have been too happy, too self-contented, too successful to realise its poignant truth. And it would not have been surprising. Youth is always intolerant and self-centred. It is only when we grow old, and see so "little done of all we so gaily set out to do," that we suddenly appreciate that, even if we have ourselves failed, yet if we can by our experience help someone else to succeed, our life will not be utterly vain. Altruism is the philosophy of middle age.

On a few, but very few, occasions Gordon was temporarily roused out of his secure atmosphere. One of these was on the last day of term, when a letter appeared in _The Fernhurst School Magazine_ suggesting that the Three c.o.c.k should be changed into a Two c.o.c.k, since the School House had for the last few years proved itself so incapable of holding out against the strong outhouse combination of three houses against one. Much of what the writer said was true. The House numbered only about seventy, while each outhouse contained some forty boys, with perhaps six day boys attached to each. The House did not take in day boys, so that the House was always playing against a selection from double its number. A Two c.o.c.k would be far fairer. Nevertheless the House was furious.

"Confounded old a.s.s," said Mansell. "I believe Claremont wrote it. Let him wait till next year and he will see his beastly blue shirts rolled in the mud."

"But it is such infernal sw.a.n.k," said Gordon. "We smashed them in the Thirds; to all intents and purposes we routed them in the Two c.o.c.k; the only thing the outhouses won was the Three c.o.c.k; and they are so bucked about that that they want to clinch a victory, get up and shout: 'Look at us, what devils of fine fellows we are! You can't touch us. Better take charity.' Unutterable conceit! Why, we won four times running about seven years ago. I have a good mind to go to Claremont and give it him straight. Betteridge, you absurd a.s.s, why did you print this thing?"

"Well, you see, there were a few rather risky things in the paper, and I thought if I cut it out he might hack about the rest of the rag. And, besides, it will be an awful score when we win next year, as we are absolutely certain to. Can't you imagine the account: 'Last year some rather foolhardy persons doubted the ability of the School House to deal with a combined side of the best three outhouses, and they were rash enough to express their doubts in print. But this year, under the able captaincy of G.F. Hunter, with the forwards admirably led by G.R.

Caruthers, the House gained a thoroughly deserved victory by fifteen points to three.' We shall crow then, my lads, sha'n't we?"

"Yes, it will be all right then," said Mansell. "My lord, I wish I was going to be here to play in it. My governor is a fool to make me leave and go to France."

Mansell was leaving at the end of the term.

"Well, all the same, it's a vile insult to the House," said Gordon.

"Whether he meant it or not, it's an insult."

But his annoyance pa.s.sed quickly. He was far too certain of the future to worry much about what anyone said. He was sure the House would win in the end. It was only a question of time. And when the prize-giving came, his anger gave way to pride. His place in form gave him little satisfaction, for he was easily bottom of the Sixth; but after the books had been given there came the turn of the House cups. Amid enormous cheers Lovelace went up for the Thirds cup; amid still louder cheers he and the outhouse captain stepped up together to receive the Two c.o.c.k cup. Then at tea Hazelton walked into hall carrying the two trophies to place on the mantelpiece, and the House burst forth in a roar of cheering. It was all sheer joy; and beyond the present glory shone the dawn of great triumphs to come. The House was just entering on its career of success. The day of Buller's was at an end. There only remained to them the remnants of their earlier glory. Where they had stood the House was about to stand. And in that hour of triumph Gordon himself would be the protagonist.

The short Easter holidays pa.s.sed happily. Over the fresh gra.s.s of Hampstead Heath Gordon wandered alone on those April mornings, when the trees were breaking into a green splendour, when the long waters of the Welsh Harp lay out in the morning sun like a sheet of gold. Looking across from the firs he saw the spire of Harrow church cutting the red sky, and the long stretch of country in between rolling out into a panorama of loveliness. On the road to Parliament Hill he pa.s.sed the spot where Sh.e.l.ley found a starving woman dying in the snow, and took her to Leigh Hunt's house to give her warmth. Near John Masefield's house was the garden where Keats had written his immortal _Ode to a Nightingale_. Hampstead was prodigal of a.s.sociations, and they stirred the boy's imagination like a trumpet call.

Then followed the long summer term, with its drowsy afternoons, its white flannels, its long evening shadows creeping across the courts, its ices, its innumerable lemonades; everything conspired to make Gordon supremely happy. Scholastically he had at last achieved his great wish of specialising in history; a fine-sounding programme which actually implied that he would not need to do another stroke of work during his Fernhurst career. Specialising in history was an elastic activity, and might mean a few hours a week in which to read up political economy. It might mean what Prothero made it mean--seven hours in school a week, and the remainder pretending to read history in his study.

The grey and lifeless Finnemore superintended the history, and, like everything else he superintended, it was scandalously neglected.

Outhouse people occasionally did a little work; School House men never.

Gordon began by taking quite modest privileges. He knew he had heaps of time to enlarge his advantages. He started by doing one prose and one "con" a week, instead of two proses and two "cons" like the rest of the form. He also gave up one Latin construe book and one Greek book. That meant about two hours a day to idle in his study. But he found it quite easy to turn that two into three, and he was well aware that by Christmas his daily hours of indolence would have reached five. Prothero at the present moment was only going into school for divinity and French, and as often as not he told his French master that he was so much occupied with history that he could not come to French at all.

Nominally he went into school seven hours a week, actually he very rarely went in more than three.

The method of teaching history at Fernhurst had been the same from time immemorial. Gordon was told to buy _Modern Europe_, by Lodge, price seven shillings and sixpence. He did not, however, put his father to this expense. History specialists in the School House had for years used the same book. It had once belonged to a fabulous Van Hepworth, who had gained a History exhibition at Selwyn somewhere in the nineties.

No one knew anything of this Van Hepworth. His name was on the school boards, but he had never been seen or heard of since he had left Fernhurst for the romantic atmosphere of Cambridge. But he had left behind him a name that will be remembered in the School House as long as history is taught by Finnemore. For on his last day, in a fit of grat.i.tude, he had left to future historians the legacy of his history notebook. It contained all that Finnemore knew!

Every week Finnemore set three questions to his specialists--to be done with books. He had a stock of these questions, and Van Hepworth had written exhaustive essays on every one of them. All that was needed was to consult the oracle, and then copy out what he had written. Sometimes, by way of a change, Finnemore would think of a new subject. But Gordon would say:

"Oh, sir, I have been reading about Mary de Medici, and am very much interested in her. I wondered if I could do a question on her."

"Of course. I always like you to do what you are interested in. Let me see. I have a nice little question on her: 'Mary de Medici: was she an unmixed evil?' An interesting subject which raises quite a lot of points. And I have one more question for you. 'Compare Richelieu and Mazarin,' an interesting little psychological study. I think you will enjoy them."

Then Gordon would have recourse to the unfailing authority, Van Hepworth. Sometimes he felt too slack to copy out the questions at all.

On such occasions he would simply read Van Hepworth's essay straight out of the old, battered book.

"I hope you won't mind my reading this to you, but I was in rather a hurry and I doubt if you could quite read my handwriting."

Finnemore would listen with the greatest interest.

"Very nice indeed, Caruthers, very sound att.i.tude to adopt. An essay well worth preserving. You will copy it out neatly, won't you?"

"Oh yes, sir."

Gordon wanted to inst.i.tute a Van Hepworth memorial, and put up a plate to him somewhere. But there were many obstacles to this. The Chief might want to know more about him, and the legend had to be kept secret. In the end he contented himself with having the book bound in full morocco, so that it might be preserved for future generations, for already the cardboard cover had become sadly torn. Where Van Hepworth is now, who knows? This only is certain, that although he has most likely by now lost all clear recollection of Fernhurst and the grey School House studies, yet his name is remembered there to-day, with far greater veneration and respect than was ever paid to him during the days of his school career.

"Let us now praise famous men, Men of little showing, For their work continueth, Deep and long continueth, Wide and far continueth, far beyond their knowing."

And so Gordon's scholastic career came to an end. He had reached the "far border town." There would be no need to fret himself about form orders any more. "Strong men might go by and pa.s.s o'er him"; he had retired from the fray. While others crammed their brains with obscure interpretations of aeschylus, he lay back reading English poetry and English prose, striving to get a clear hold of the forces that went to produce each movement, and incidentally doing himself far more good than he would have done by binding himself down to the cla.s.sical regime, which trained boys to imitate, and not to strike out on their own.

Gordon had already acquired enough of the taste and sense of form which the cla.s.sics alone can provide, and which are essential to a real culture. But he was lucky in stopping soon enough to prevent himself being forced into a groove, from which he could only judge new movements by the Ciceronian standards, without grasping the fact that technique and form are merely outward coverings of genius, and not genius in themselves.

To the other delights of this delightful term was added the sudden and unexpected success of Gordon's cricket. For the first fortnight Gordon found himself playing on House and Colts games. But as he gathered runs there with ease, he was soon transplanted to the First Eleven nets, which he thenceforward only left for a brief spell, after an attack of chicken-pox. For a member of the School Eleven life has nothing better to offer than a summer term. There were usually two matches a week. The team would get off work at ten o'clock, and just as the school was pouring out in break they would stroll leisurely down to the cricket field. Everything, in fact, was carried out leisurely. A wonderful atmosphere of repose hangs over a cricket field in the morning, when the gra.s.s is still sparkling with dew, and there is silence and vast emptiness where usually is the sound of shouting and hurrying feet.

There was the long luncheon interval, when the members of the Eleven would wander round the field arm in arm, or lounge on the seats lazy and contented. Gordon loved to sit in the pavilion balcony watching the white forms change across between the overs, the red ball bounce along the gra.s.s, the wicket-keeper whip off the bails, the umpire's finger go up. The whole tableau was so unreal, so idealistic. Then the school would come down after lunch with rugs and cushions, and would clamour outside the tuck-shop for ices and ginger beer. Gordon could hardly connect his present existence with the past two years of doubts, uncertainties, wild excitements, hurry, bustle--never a second's peace.

One of his most perfect days was the Radley match. After a long journey, at the very end of the day they pa.s.sed through Oxford, and Gordon caught one fleeting glimpse of those wonderful "dreaming spires," rising golden in the dying sun. As the team walked up from Abingdon to the college, Tester, who had at last got into the side, came up and took Gordon's arm.

"You know, when I saw Oxford lying out there so peaceful and calm, I thought I had at last reached the end of searching. This was my first view of Oxford; by pa.s.sing the certificate I didn't need to go up for smalls. Thank G.o.d, I am going up there next term. I think I shall forget all my old misgivings in so completely peaceful an atmosphere. I can't shake off the Public School ideas yet; I am all adrift; still, I think it will be all right there."

Gordon wondered indeed how anyone could fail to find all their dreams realised in so secluded, so monastic a Utopia.

The next two days were supremely happy. Gordon, Lovelace and Foster were put into the same house; and they spent half the night ragging in their old light-hearted fashion. The match resembled most of the other performances of that year's Eleven. The whole side was out for eighty.

Gordon hit two fours and was then leg before; Lovelace, with laborious efforts and much use of his pads, made twenty-three and five leg byes.

But it was a sorry performance, and Radley put up over two hundred.

Fernhurst went in again; and that day Gordon and Lovelace were sent in first.

It was an amazing performance. Gordon's cricket was, in honest fact, one of the biggest frauds that had ever been inflicted on an opposing side.

He had three shots--a cut, a slash shot past cover, and a drive that landed the ball anywhere from mid-wicket to over short-slip. People used to say that he tried each of these shots in rotation. That perhaps was hardly fair; but he invariably cut straight b.a.l.l.s and pulled good length b.a.l.l.s on the off stump to the on boundary. This evening, at any rate, he was in luck. With terrific violence he smote the Radley bowling all round the field. Some shots went along the ground, more fell just out of reach of a fielder. It was invigorating but hardly cla.s.sic cricket.

Still, whatever it was, it produced seventy-two runs, while Lovelace had scored three. After he left Lovelace became still more cautious. A man from Christy's was in at the other end, who had been instructed to keep up his end for an hour. As a matter of fact, they scored exactly two runs between them in about half-an-hour. That two was from a drive from Lovelace past cover.

At such daring Lovelace became much elated.

"Come on, I say, come on. Lots of runs here. Come on."

The Radley men were very amused. Lovelace took nothing seriously. It was as well that "the Bull" was absent. Once, just as the bowler was rushing up to bowl, Lovelace flung out his hand and said: "Stop! Move the screen please; your hand is just behind a tree!"

With great difficulty the screens were moved.

Once he patted the ball a little way down the pitch, and shouted to the batsman at the other end, with hand extended: "Stay!"

There was some subdued laughter.

Lovelace turned round to the wicket-keeper and said: "Strange as it may seem, I am the worst member of this rotten side, and I am playing for my place. This is the way to keep your place at Fernhurst."

The final achievement was a successful appeal against the light.

The next day it rained in torrents.