by Hugh Walpole
She felt his agitation, and wished that the top of the hill might be reached as speedily as possible, but she fancied a little that he lingered. She hastened her steps.
“I’m not sure that it isn’t raining — I felt a drop just now, I thought — and it was such a lovely afternoon.”
“Oh, no, I assure you—” and then he suddenly stopped.
She was frightened — quite unreasonably. She wanted to reach the warmth and light of Mrs. Comber’s drawing-room as soon as possible and escape from this strange, awkward man.
She broke the silence. “How is Mr. Traill getting on at the Lower School? I hope you all like him. The boys seem to have taken to him; but then, of course, his football is a quick road to favor.”
Mr. Perrin seemed to be swallowing his teeth. He coughed and choked. “Ah, well, yes, Traill — young, of course, young, and one can only learn by experience. Perhaps just a little inclined to be cock-sure — dangerous thing to be too certain — a fault of youth, of course.”
“Oh, I’ve found him,” said Isabel, “very modest and pleasant. Of course, I haven’t seen very much of him, but I must say that what I’ve seen of him I’ve liked.”
They were nearly at the top of the hill; the big black gates cut the horizon.
In the light of the lamps at the corner of the road Isabel saw Mr. Perrin’s face. It looked very white under the gaslight, and he was clenching and unclenching his hands. His cap was on one side, his tie had risen at the back above his collar... his eyes were looking into hers and beseeching her like the eyes of a dumb animal.
They had come to the gates.
“Miss Desart...”
They both came to a halt in the road.
“Yes?” she said, smiling at him.
“I want you to... I’d be awfully glad one day if...”
He stopped again desperately.
“What can I do?” she said, still smiling at him. He looked so odd, standing there in the dark, silent road... his hands restless. His eyes had moved from her face and were gazing up the road.
“I would be so glad if — one day — so flattered if — you would — will — um — come for a walk, one day.” He stopped with a jerk.
She moved through the gate and looked back at him before turning up the path to the house.
“Why, of course, Mr. Perrin, I shall be delighted. Good night.”
He stood looking after her.
CHAPTER V — A GAME OF FOOTBALL AND A DANCE IN PENDRAGON HAVE THEIR PART IN THE SCHEME OF THINGS
I.
LATER there is Mr. Perrin heavily — with the midday mutton close about his head — surveying, in his dingy and tattered sitting-room, four small boys who gaze at him with staring eyes and jumping throats.
It is a piece of English poetry that has brought them, miserably, by the ears — Browning’s “Patriot,” one verse a week, to be said every Tuesday morning first hour, and to be forgotten eagerly, completely forgotten, every Tuesday morning second hour.
I go in the rain and, more than needs
The rope — the rope — the rope —
Johnson Minor gazed miserably at his companions and, finding no help in man, but only a jesting glory at his misfortunes, dizzily, despairingly, to the top row of Mr. Perrin’s bookcase, where Advanced Algebra and Mensuration hold perpetual war and rivalry.
It was a desperate affair altogether, because it was the afternoon of a football match — a great football match against a mighty Truro team, — and already the gathering multitude in the field below flung a derisive murmur at the dusty panes.
But Mr. Perrin was motionless. He offered no assistance, he suggested no remedy, he merely tapped with his bone paper-knife on the red tablecloth — a tap that showed Johnson Minor once and for all that his case was hopeless:
A rope — a rope that —
Johnson Minor, with hanging head and red eyes, passed out to write it, the whole poem, fifty times before lock-up. He would miss the match. Outside, in the passage, he suddenly remembered the whole verse clearly, perfectly; but it was too late.
At last one prisoner only remained — Garden Minimus, a cheerful, untidy person aged ten, in enormous boots and no kind of parting to his hair.
Garden Minimus was the boy whom Perrin liked best in the whole school — had liked him best for the last two years. When things were really black, when headaches were violent, and when unpopularity seemed to hang about him in a dense, thick cloud, there was always Garden Minimus. He flattered himself that the boy was not aware of this partiality; but the boy, he was sure, liked him. He treated him always with an elaborate irony that the boy seemed to understand in some curious way. Garden would stand, with his head on one side like a rather intelligent small dog, and although he rarely said anything more than “Yes, sir,” or “No, sir,” Perrin felt that he grasped the situation.
On this afternoon it was plain that Garden Minimus did not know a word of “The Patriot,” and had made no attempt whatever to learn it.
Mr. Perrin looked at him with a slow smile. “I’m afraid, friend Garden,” he said, “that it will devolve upon your lordship — hum — ha — that you should write this poem of the noble Mr. Robert Browning’s no less than fifty times. I grieve — I sympathize — I am your humble servant; but the law commands.”
Garden Minimus brushed Mr. Perrin’s fine periods aside, and said, with a most engaging smile, “There’s a most ripping footer match this afternoon, sir.”
“Fool though I am,” said Mr. Perrin, “I have nevertheless observed that there is, as you say, a footer match. Nevertheless, I am afraid ‘The Patriot’ calls you, friend Garden.”
“It would be an awful pity,” said Garden reflectively, without paying the slightest attention to Mr. Perrin, “to miss a decent game like that.”
Suddenly Mr. Perrin was irritated. He snapped out sharply, “All right, Garden; that will do. You’ll get it a hundred times if you aren’t careful!”
Garden, realizing his defeat, moved slowly out of the room, his forehead lowering. Outside the door he muttered, “Silly, pompous ass!”
Mr. Perrin remained discontented, unhappy. He was continually attempting to make the boys fond of him and at the same time to retain his dignity. He never succeeded in this, because so definite an attempt on his part immediately precluded any capitulation on theirs. They thought he was a fool to try, and they resented his airs.
He was really fond of Garden Minimus, he thought, as he sat with his head between his arms in his dingy, dusty room. The dust wove patterns above his head in the pale, dim sunlight. He must go down and watch the football. He must get out amongst people, because he had a sickening fear that for the first time that term his headaches were coming back to him. He had avoided them. Miss Desart had been there instead, and every time that she spoke to him he had felt well and happy.
She had spoken to him a good many times lately, and he now was sure that she was attracted to him. Soon he would ask her to go with him for a walk... then there would be more walks... then.... He wrote to his mother that the thing was practically arranged.
As for that puppy, Traill — well, he ‘d kept him in his place, thank Heaven. As the days increased, Perrin had grown to dislike him more and more — conceited, insufferable, giving himself such airs. When he met anyone who gave himself airs, Perrin had a curious habit of referring things back to his old mother and seeing her insulted. He could see the patronizing way that Traill would speak to her. This always made him furiously angry when he thought of it. But being furiously angry only brought on his headaches again. Oh! there were things to be done! He looked around his room and saw a pile of mathematical papers, some English essays. His eye crossed to the mantelpiece, and he saw there a silly china figure, painted in red and yellow, of an old gentleman in a cocked hat. This, for no reason that he could explain, always irritated him. The old gentleman had so confident and knowing a smile. He had always meant to get rid of it, but for some reason or other he never could destroy it.
Oh! he must get out into the air! His head was very bad.
As he left his room, there was a vague fear, somewhere, at his heart.
The game had begun. The ropes on either side were thickly lined with a dark crowd of boys, and a long wailing shout, “Scho-o-l!” rose and fell without ceasing. Perrin, in his shabby greatcoat, watched with a superior but interested air. There was nothing in the world that excited him more, but he had never been able to play himself and so he affected to despise it.
In front of him, pressed against the rope, were three small boys of his own house, each boy holding a paper bag from which he drew fat and sticky green and brown sweets. They had not noticed him. They divided their attention between their neighbors, their sweets, and the game.
“Shut up, Huggins, you silly fool! What are you shoving for?”
“Can’t help it — Grey’s barging — Oh! I say, run it, Morton. That’s it! Pick it up — dodge him, man! Oh, hang it!”
“I say, swop one of those brown things for one of mine — Thanks! Where’s Garden, you chaps?”
“Swotting up for Old Pompous.”
“Oh! what rot! I’m blowed if I would. I thought Pompous was rather sweet on Garden.”
“So he is — but Garden can’t stand him.”
“No wonder — blithering ass, with his long words!”
“Oh! I say — they’ve got it! There’s Morton off again — Oh! he’s going! Well run, my word! He’s in! No, he isn’t! The back’s got him! No, he hasn’t! Hurray! Try! Good old Morton!”
Amongst the commotion that followed the happy event Perrin moved to a less crowded portion of the people. He was accustomed to hearing himself spoken of with but little respect by those who, when he was present, trembled before him. He always told himself that all the members of the staff were in the same box; but this afternoon it hurt — it hurt badly.
Little beasts! He’d punish them! As he moved along behind the ranks of boys — each boy with his friend — the familiar mantle of loneliness, that he had known so long, swept him in its somber folds. He saw Comber in the distance, turned to avoid him, and suddenly confronted Mrs. Comber and Miss Desart.
He pulled himself up with a sudden effort of one who, feeling at his very worst, has immediately to appear at his very best, and the struggle was glaring to the observer, in the nervous clutching of the buttons of his coat and his uneasy, agitated laugh.
Mrs. Comber was always at her noisiest and most affable with Mr. Perrin, because she didn’t like him, and she always tried to cover that dislike with an increased amiability. Isabel stood rather gravely by and watched the game.
“We appear to be winning,” said Perrin, glaring as he spoke at three small boys who had looked up at the sound of his voice. “We appear — um — to be winning. Morton has secured a try.”
“Yes, I’m so glad,” gasped Mrs. Comber — she was out of breath. “Morton’s a nice boy — we had him once in our house, and I do hope the school will win, because it’s so nice for everybody’s tempers, and the boys like it — and there’s that nice Mr. Traill playing and running about most beautifully.”
Perrin started. He hadn’t noticed that Traill was playing. He looked at Isabel and saw that she was watching the game with deep attention. Traill was certainly in his element. The ball came suddenly in his direction. He had it in his hands and was off with it. There was a breathless, hushed pause; then, as he sped along, just inside the touch-line, swerved past his opposing three-quarter to the center of the field, and flew for the goal, the silence broke into a roar. Miss Desart gave a long-drawn “Oh!” Mrs. Comber a little scream, Mr. Perrin moodily stroked his mustache.
The back was outwitted, and came floundering to the ground — a very pretty try.
“Good old Traillers!”
“That’s something like!”
“Isn’t he spiffing?” — and then Miss Desart’s, “Oh! that was splendid!” beat about Mr. Perrin’s poor head, that was aching horribly.
“That nice Mr. Traill! I do like to see people run like that. Oh! it’s half-time.”
Mrs. Comber caught Mr. Perrin slowly into her vision again and prepared once more to be volubly pleasant.
But Mr. Perrin had had enough. On the opposite side of the field, on the top of the hill against the china white of the autumn sky, were three trees, gnarled, bent, gaunt, like three old men. Quite alone they stood and watched, impersonally and gravely, the game. Mr. Perrin felt suddenly as though he, too, were really one of them. Behind them sheets of white light, falling from the hidden sun, flooded the long, brown fields.
Cold pale blue was reflected against the gray stodgy clouds. Mr. Perrin went back slowly to his room. The dusty untidiness of it closed about him. He sat down to his pile of English essays on “Town and Country — Which is the best to live in?” with a confused sense of running men, lights across the hills, the china red and black man on the mantelpiece, and Miss Desart’s shining eyes.
At five o’clock, with a heavy scowl, Garden Minimus presented “The Patriot” neatly written fifty times.
II.
It was about this time that Archie Traill accepted an invitation to a dance at Sir Henry Trojan’s. It was to be only a small dance, and it was to be over by twelve. “Do let us,” Lady Trojan wrote, “put you up. You will be able to see more of Robin, who is coming down for the night from London. He will want to see you so badly.” Traill wrote back, accepting the dance, but explaining that he must return on the same evening, quoting as his imperative necessity early morning preparation.
It was Clinton’s evening on duty, and therefore there was no very obvious necessity to say anything more about it; but Traill, in order to free himself from any further danger, thought that he would go and receive definite permission from Moy-Thompson. He had not as yet been to a single dinner or evening party outside the school, and he had noticed that the rest of the staff never went out at all, nor had apparently any intention of doing so. He went round at twelve o’clock after morning school to Moy-Thompson’s study, knocked on the door, and entered. He was conscious at once of trouble in the air. He saw that White, the nervous man who took the Classical Fifth, was standing by Thompson’s table. He moved back as though he would leave the room; but the headmaster called to him, “Ah! Traill, don’t go. I shall be ready in a moment.”
Then Traill noticed several things. He noticed, first, that Moy-Thompson’s garden beyond the window was colored a brilliant brown in the sun; he noticed that Moy-Thompson’s study was dark and black, like a prison; he noticed that White’s long hatchet-face was yellow in the half-light; he noticed that both White’s hands, hanging straight at his side, were tightly clenched, and that his thin legs, spread widely apart, were drawn tight beneath his trousers so that the cloth flapped a little against his thin calves; he noticed that Moy-Thompson’s long gray beard swept the table and that his fingers tapped the wood every now and again with the sound of peas rattling on a plate; he noticed that Moy-Thompson was smiling.
Moy-Thompson said, “But I think I told you that Maurice was on no account to have an exeat.”
White’s voice came from a far, hesitating distance: “Yes, I know. But his father was only to be in London for an hour, and he has not seen his son for a year, and I thought that under the circumstances—”
“That does not alter the fact that I had expressed a wish that he should not have an exeat.”
“No — but I thought that if you knew all the circumstances of the case, you would not object.”
“What is your position here? Are you here to consider my wishes? What are you paid to do?”
White made no answer.
“Of course if you are dissatisfied with the condition of things here, you have only to say so. It would be doubtless possible to fill your place.”
“No,” — White’s voice was very low— “I have no complaint. I am sorry if—”
“You must remember your position here. I have yet to discover any paid position
that enables you to indulge your own particular fancies when you please. Doubtless you are better informed.”
Traill could endure it no longer. He was so angry that the blood had rushed to his head, and his face was scarlet. White had flung one glance at him, as though to beseech him to go away, and he moved to the door; but again Moy-Thompson said, “Just a moment, Traill.”
He was so angry that, on the impulse of the moment, he had almost stepped across the room and flung in his resignation. White’s long haggard figure was torture; it was cruelty, devilish cruelty, laughing with them there in the room.
The man at the table was playing with them as a cat does with a mouse, shaming one of them before the younger man, as though he had stripped him naked and driven him so into the playing-fields outside, forcing the other to listen, brutally, intolerably, against his will.
The room seemed full of pain — it seemed to cross and recross in waves. White’s head bent down.... At last he passed with lowered eyes out through the door.
Traill could not speak; without another word, he turned and followed him. Outside the door in the darkened passage he suddenly held out his hand and caught White’s. White held his for an instant; suddenly, with a frightened, startled look, he stepped away.
III.
When the evening of the dance arrived, Traill noticed that he was glad to get away. Term had now lasted for six weeks, and in another week it would be half-term. He was a little tired; he found it more difficult to get up in the morning. Little things mattered a great deal — he now emphatically disliked Perrin more than he had ever disliked anyone in his life before; there was even annoyance in the mere sight of his long, lean, untidy figure, in the sound of his assured, supercilious voice, in the sense of his arrogance.
They never spoke to each other if they could help it; meals were extremely disagreeable.
He found, too, that love did not mingle properly with school work. He was always going into day-dreams when he should have been teaching his form. He tried to keep the sea and the wood and the funny man that he had met there and Isabel apart from his work; but they came skipping in — and at night he dreamt — he was almost sure that she loved him.... Whenever they met now they were very silent.