by Hugh Walpole
I am always, your friend,
Stephen Brant.
But Peter had lied in his letter. He was not in any way happy at all. He had lied because he knew that it would have hurt Stephen if he had told him the truth — and the truth was something that must be met with clenched teeth and shoulders set back.
Taking him at the end of the first week one finds simple bewilderment and also a conviction that silence is the best policy. He was placed in the lowest form because of his ignorance of Latin and Mathematics, and here every one was younger and weaker. During school hours there was comparative peace, and he sat with perplexed brow and inky fingers, or was sent down to the bottom for inattention. It was not inattention but rather a complete incapacity for grasping the system on which everything worked. Meanwhile in this first week he had earned a reputation and made three friends, and although he did not know it that was not a bad beginning.
On the day after his arrival Peter, after midday dinner, standing desolately in the playground and feeling certain that he ought to be playing football somewhere but completely ignorant as to the place where lists commonly hung, saw another new boy and hailed him. This boy he had noticed before — he was shapeless of body, with big, round, good-tempered eyes, and he moved more slowly than any one whom Peter had ever seen. Nothing stirred him; he did not mind it when his ears were pulled or his arms twisted, but only said slowly, “Oh, drop it!” To this wonderful boy Peter made approach.
“Can you tell me where the lists are for football? I ought to have been playing yesterday only I didn’t know where to look.”
The slow boy smiled. “I’m going to look myself,” he said, “come on.”
And then two things happened. First sauntering down the playground there came a boy whom Peter had noticed on that first morning in school — some one very little older than Peter and not very much bigger, but with a grace, a dignity, an air that was very wonderful indeed. He was a dark boy with his hair carelessly tossed over his forehead; he was very clean and he had beautiful hands. To Peter’s rough and clumsy figure he seemed everything that a boy should be, and, in his mind, he had called him “Steerforth.” As this boy approached there suddenly burst into view a discordant crowd with some one in their midst. They were shouting and laughing, and Peter could hear that some one was crying. The crowd separated and formed a ring and danced shouting round a very small and chubby boy who was standing crying quite desperately, with his head buried in his arm. Every now and then the infant was knocked by one boy in the ring into another boy’s arms, and so was tossed from side to side.
The hopeless sound of the chubby one’s crying caused Peter suddenly to go red hot somewhere inside his chest, and like a bullet from a gun he was into the middle of the circle. “You beasts! You beasts,” he sobbed hysterically. He began to hit wildly, with his head down, at any one near him, and very soon there was a glorious mêlée. The crowd roared with laughter as they flung the two small boys against one another, then suddenly one of the circle got a wild blow in the eye from Peter’s fist and went staggering back, another was kicked in the shins, a third was badly winded. Peter had lost all sense of place or time, of reason or sanity; he was wild with excitement, and the pent-up emotions of the last five days found magnificent overwhelming freedom. He did not know whether he were hit or no, once he was down and in an instant up again — once a face was close to his and he drove hard at the mouth — but he was small and his arms and legs were short. Indeed it would have gone badly with him had there not been heard, in all the roar of battle, the mystic whisper “Binns,” and in an instant, as the snow flies before the sun, so had that gallant crowd disappeared. Only the small cause of the disturbance and Peter remained. The tall form of a master passed slowly down the playground, but it appeared that he had seen nothing, and he did not speak. The small boy was gazing at Peter with wide-opened eyes, large in a white face on which were many tear stains. Peter, who was conscious now that blood was pouring from a cut in his cheek, that one of his teeth was missing and that one of his eyes was fast closing, was about to speak to him when he was aware that his “Steerforth” had sprung from nowhere and was advancing gracefully to meet him. Peter’s heart beat very fast.
The boy smiled at him and held out his hand.
“I say, shake hands. You’ve got pluck — my eye! I never saw such a rag!”
Peter shook hands and was speechless.
“What’s your name?”
“Westcott.”
“Mine’s Cardillac. It isn’t spelt as it’s spoken, you know. C-a-r-d-i-l-l-a-c. I’m in White’s — what do you say to places next each other at table?”
“Rather.” Peter’s face was crimson. “Thanks most awfully.” He stammered in his eagerness.
“Right you are — see you after chapel.” The boy moved away.
Peter said something to the infant whom he had delivered, and was considering where he might most unobtrusively wash when he was once more conscious of some one at his elbow. It was the slow boy who was smiling at him.
“I say, you’re a sight. You’d better wash, you know.”
“Yes, I was just thinking of that only I didn’t quite know where to go.”
“Come with me — I’ll get round Mother Gill all right. She likes me. You’ve got some cheek. Prester and Banks Mi, and all sorts of fellows were in that crowd. You landed Prester nicely.” He chuckled. “What’s your name?”
“Westcott.”
“Mine’s Galleon.”
“Galleon?” Peter’s eyes shone. “I say, you didn’t ever have a housekeeper called Mrs. Trussit?”
“Trussit? Yes, rather, of course I remember, when I was awfully small.”
“Why, she’s ours now! Then it must be your father who writes books!”
“Yes, rather. He’s most awfully famous!”
Peter stopped still, his mouth open with excitement.
Of all the amazing things! What doesn’t life give you if you trust it!
II
But before it became a question of individuals there is the place to be considered. This Dawson’s of twenty years ago does not exist now nor, let us pray the Fates, are there others like it. It is not only with bitterness that a boy whom Dawson’s had formed would look back on it but also with a dim, confused wonder that he had escaped with a straight soul and a straight body from that Place. There were many, very many indeed, who did not escape, and it would indeed have been better for them all had they died before they were old enough to test its hospitality. If any of those into whose hands this story of Peter may fall were, by the design of God, themselves trained by the place of which I speak, they will understand that all were not as fortunate as Peter — and for those others there should be sympathy....
To Peter indeed it all came very slowly because he had known so little before. He had not been a week in the place before there were very many things that he was told — there were other things that he saw for himself.
There is, for instance, at the end of the third week, the incident of Ferris, the Captain of the School. He was as a God in Peter’s eyes, he was greater, more wonderful than Stephen, than any one in the world. His word was law....
One late afternoon Peter cleaned plates for him in his study, and Ferris watched him. Ferris was kind and talked about many things out of his great wisdom, and then he asked Peter whether he would always like to be his fag, and Peter, delighted, said “Yes.”
Then Ferris smiled and spoke, dropping his voice. Three weeks earlier Peter would not have understood, but now he understood quite well and he went very white and broke from the room, leaving the plates where they were — and Cheeseman became Ferris’ fag —
This was all very puzzling and perplexing to Peter.
But after that first evening when he had hidden his head in the greatcoat and cried, he had shown no sign of fear and he soon found that, on that side of Life, things became easy. He was speedily left alone, and indeed he must have been, in spite of his small size, so
mething of a figure even then.
His head was so very firm on his shoulders, his grey eyes were so very straight, and his lip curled in a disagreeable way when he was displeased; he was something of the bulldog, and even at this early period the First and Second forms showed signs of meek surrender to his leadership. But he was, of course, not happy — he was entirely miserable. He would be happier later on when he had been able to arrange all these puzzling certainties so different from those dazzling imaginations that he had painted. How strange of him to have been so glad to leave Stephen and the others — even old Curtis! What could he have thought was coming!
He remembered as though it had been another life that Christmas Eve, the fight, the beating, the carols....
And yet, with it all, with the dreariness and greyness and fierceness and dirtiness of it all, he would not change it for those earlier things — this was growing, this was growing up!
He was certainly happier after his meeting with Cardillac— “Cards” as he was always called. Here was a hero indeed! Not to displace, of course, Stephen, who remained as a stained-glass window remains, to be looked at and treasured and remembered — but here was a living wonder! Every movement that Cards made was astounding, and not only Peter felt it. Even the masters seemed to suggest that he was different from the rest and watched him admiringly. Cards was only fourteen, but he had seen the world. He had been with his mother (his father was dead) about Europe, he knew London, he had been to the theatres; school, he gave them all to understand, was an interim in the social round. He took Peter’s worship very easily and went for walks with him and talked in a wonderful way. He admired Peter’s strength.
Peter found that Galleon — Bobby Galleon — was disappointing, not very interesting. He had never read his father’s books, and he couldn’t tell Peter very much about the great man; he was proud of him but rather reserved. He had not many ideas about anything and indeed when he went for a walk with Peter was usually very silent, although always in a good temper. Cards thought Galleon very dull and never spoke to him if he could avoid doing so, and Peter was sometimes quite angry with Galleon because he would “turn up so” when one might have had Cards to oneself.
Peter’s main feeling about it all when half term arrived was that one must just stand with one’s back to the wall if one was to avoid being hurt. He did not now plunge into broils to help other people; he found that it did not in reality help them and that it only meant that he got kicked as well as the other boy. One’s life was a diligent watchfulness with the end in view of avoiding the enemy. The enemy was to be found in any shape and form; there was no security by night or day, but on the whole life was safer if one spoke as little as possible and stuck to the wall. There were Devils — most certainly Devils — roaming the world, and as he watched the Torture and the Terror and then the very dreadful submission, he vowed with clenched lips that he would never Submit...and so gradually he was learning the truth of that which Frosted Moses had spoken...
Cornwall, meanwhile — the Grey Hill, Scaw House, the hills above Truro — remained to him during these weeks, securely hidden.
III
There remains to be chronicled of that first term only the Comber Fight and, a little conversation, one windy day, with Galleon. The small boy, by name Beech Minimus, whom Peter had defended on that earlier occasion, had attached himself with unswerving fidelity to his preserver. He was round and fat, and on his arrival had had red cheeks and sparkling eyes — now he was pale and there were lines under his eyes; he started if any one spoke to him, and was always eager to hide when possible. Peter was very sorry for him, but, after a month of the term had passed he had, himself, acquired the indifference of those that stand with their backs to the wall. Beech would go on any kind of errand for him and would willingly have died for him had it been required of him — he did indeed during the hours that he was left in peace in his dormitory, picture to himself wonderful scenes in which he saved Peter from horrible deaths and for his own part perished.
It may have been that he clung to Peter partly because there was more safety in his neighbourhood, for amongst the lower school boys at any rate, very considerable fear of Peter was to be noticed, but Beech’s large eyes raised to the other boy’s face or his eager smile as he did something that Peter required of him, spoke devotion.
Beech Minimus was forced, however, for the good of his soul, to suffer especial torture between the hours of eight and nine in the evening. It was the custom that the Lower School should retire from preparation at eight o’clock, it being supposed that at that hour the Lower School went to bed. But Authority, blinded by trustful good nature and being engaged at that hour with its wine and dinner, left the issue to chance and the Gods, and human nature being what it is, the Lower School triumphed in freedom. There was a large, empty class room at the back of the building where much noise might safely be made, and in this place and at this hour followed the nightly torture of Beech and his minute companions — that torture named by the Gods, “Discipline,” by the Authorities, “Boys will be Boys,” by the Parent, “Learning to be a Man,” and by the Lower School “A Rag.” Beech and his companions had not as yet a name for it. Peter was, as a rule, left to his own thoughts and spent the hours amongst the greatcoats in the passage reading David Copperfield or talking in whispers to Bobby Galleon. But nevertheless he was not really indifferent, he was horribly conscious even in his sleep, of Beech’s shrill “Oh! Comber, don’t! Please, Comber, oh!” and Beech being in the same dormitory as himself he noticed, almost against his will, that shivering little mortal as he crept into bed and cowered beneath the sheets wondering whether before morning he would be tossed in sheets or would find his bed drenched in water or would be beaten with hair brushes. Peter’s philosophy of standing it in silence and hitting back if he were himself attacked was scarcely satisfactory in Beech’s case, and, again and again, his attention would be dragged away from his book to that other room where some small boys were learning lessons in life.
The head of this pleasant sport was one Comber, a large, pale-faced boy, some years older than his place in the school justified, but of a crass stupidity, a greedy stomach and a vicious cruelty. Peter had already met him in football and had annoyed him by collaring him violently on one occasion, it being the boy’s habit, owing to his size and reputation, to run down the field in the Lower School game, unattacked. Peter’s hatred of him grew more intense week by week; some days after Mid-Term, it had swollen into a passion. He finally told Bobby Galleon one day at luncheon that on that very evening he was going to defy this Comber. Galleon besought him not to do this, pointing out Comber’s greater strength and the natural tendency of the Lower School to follow their leader blindly. Peter said nothing in reply but watched, when eight o’clock had struck and the Lower School had assembled in the class room, for his moment. It was a somewhat piteous spectacle. Comber and some half a dozen friends in the middle of the room, and forty boys ranging in years from eight to twelve, waiting with white faces and propitiatory smiles, eager to assist in the Torture if they only might themselves be spared.
“Now you chaps,” this from Comber— “we’ll have a Gauntlet. I votes we make young Beech run first.”
“Rather! Come on, Beech — you’ve jolly well got to.”
“Buck up, you funk!” from those relieved that they were themselves, for the instant, safe.
Peter was sitting on a bench at the back of the room — he stood on the bench and shouted, “You’re a beast. Comber.”
There was immediate silence — every one turned first to Comber, and then back to Peter. Comber paused in the preparation of the string whip that he was making, and his face was crimson.
“Oh, it’s you, you young skunk, is it? Bring him here some of you fellows.”
Eager movements were made in his direction, but Peter, still standing on his bench, shouted: “I claim a fight.”
There was silence again — a silence now of incredulity and amazement.
But there was nothing to be done; if any one claimed a fight, by all the rules and traditions of Dawson’s he must have it. But that Westcott, a new boy and in the bottom form should challenge Comber! Slowly, and as it were against their will, hearts beat a little faster, faces brightened. Of course Westcott would be most hopelessly beaten, but might not this prove the beginning of the end of their tyrant?
Meanwhile, Comber between his teeth: “All right, you young devil, I’ll give you such a hiding as you damned well won’t forget. Then we’ll treat you properly afterwards.”
A ring was made, and there was silence, so that the prefects might not be attracted, because fighting in the Lower School was forbidden. Coats were taken off and Peter faced Comber with the sensation of attacking a mountain. Peter knew nothing about fighting at all, but Comber had long subsisted on an easy reputation and he was a coward at heart. There swung into Peter’s brain the picture of The Bending Mule, the crowding faces, the swinging lamp, Stephen with the sledge-hammer blow...it was the first time for weeks that he had thought of Treliss.
He was indifferent — he did not care; things could not be worse, and he did not mind what happened to him, and Comber minded very much indeed, and he had not been hit in the face for a long time. His arms went round like windmills, and the things that he would like to have done were to pull Peter’s hair from its roots and to bite him on the arm. As the fight proceeded and he knew that his face was bleeding and that the end of his nose had no sensation in it at all he kicked with his feet and was conscious of cries that he was not playing the game. Infuriated that his recent supporters should so easily desert him, he now flung himself upon Peter, who at once gave way beneath the bigger boy’s weight. Comber then began to bite and tear and scratch, uttering shrill screams of rage and kicking on the floor with his feet. He was at once pulled away, assured by those dearest friends who had so recently and merrily assisted him in his “rags” that he was not playing the game and was no sportsman. He was moreover a ludicrous sight, his trousers being torn, one blue-black eye staring from a confused outline of dust and blood, his hair amazingly on end.