The Loom of Youth

by Alec Waugh

  But the Chief was very wise. As he glanced down the mark list he realised that Johnstone’s marks could hardly be due to honest work. But the Chief was also very tactful. He thought, on the whole, that in case of such general merit it would be invidious to single any individual out for special distinction, and, of course, he could not give prizes to everyone. He would, however, most certainly mention the fact at prize-giving. When he did, the applause was strangely mingled with laughter.

  But this was only one incident in many dull hours. As a whole, the week’s exam, failed to provide much to look back on afterwards with any satisfaction. Even the Chemistry exam, fell flat. FitzMorris picked up a copy of the paper on Jenks’s desk and took a copy of it. The marks here also were above the average.

  * * * * *

  It is inevitable that the end of the summer term should be overhung with an atmosphere of sadness. When the new September term opens there are many faces that will be missing; the giants of yester-year will have departed; another generation will have taken their places. But for all that these last days are not without their own particular glory. Rome must have been very wonderful during the last week of Sulla’s consulship. And in the passing of Meredith there was something essentially splendid; for it happens so seldom in life that the culminating point of our success coincides with the finish of anything. We are continually being mocked by the horror of the second best. We do not know where to stop; we cling too long to our laurels; and when the end finally comes they have begun to wither. Death is an anti-climax. The heart that once loved, and was as grass before the winds of passion, has grown cold amid a world of commonplace. But at school there is no dragging out of triumphs. All too soon the six short years fly past, and we stand on the threshold of life in the very flush of our pride. “Just once in a while we may finish in style.” It is not often; the roses fade.

  The final of the Senior House matches was drawing to a close on the last Friday of the term. Buller’s were beating the School House L-Z easily. There had never been any doubt about the result. L-Z was entirely a one-man side, that Meredith had managed to carry it on his shoulders through the two first rounds.

  The House had only two wickets in hand, and still wanted over eighty runs to avoid an innings’ defeat. But Meredith was still in. It had been a great innings. He had gone in first with Mansell, and watched wicket after wicket fall, while he had gone on playing the same brilliant game. Every stroke was the signal of a roar from the pavilion. The whole House was looking on. It was a fitting end to a dazzling career. It was like his life, reckless and magnificent. At last he mis-hit a half-volley and was caught in the deep for seventy-two.

  As he left the wicket the whole House surged forward in front of the pavilion, and formed up in two lines, leaving a gangway. Amid tremendous applause Meredith ran between them. The cheering was deafening.

  After prayers that night the Chief said a few words about the match.

  “I am sorry we did not win; but, then, I don’t think many of us dared to hope for that. At any rate, we were not disgraced, and I wish to take the opportunity of congratulating Meredith, not only on his superb innings this afternoon, but also on his keen and energetic captaincy throughout the term.”

  This was the signal for another demonstration. Everyone beat with their fists upon their table. It was a great scene.

  The giants of our youth always appear to us much greater than those of any successive era. In future years Gordon was to see other captains of football, other captains of cricket, but with the exception of the tremendous Lovelace, Meredith towered above them all. He was at that moment the very great god of Gordon’s soul. He seemed to be all that Gordon wished to be, brilliant and successful. Surely the fates had showered on him all their gifts.

  On the last Monday there was a huge feed in the games study. Over twenty people were crowded in. Armour was there, Mansell, Gordon, Simonds, Foster, Ferguson, everyone except Clarke. There was no one who was not sorry to lose Meredith; his achievements so dazzled them that they could see nothing beyond them. They were proud to have such a man in the house. It was all sheer happiness.

  Somehow on the last day the following notice appeared on the House board:—

  In Memoriam

  MALEVUS SCHOLARUM

  In hadibus requiescat

  Quod non sine ignominia militavit

  No one knew who was responsible for it. Clarke looked at it for a second and turned away with a face that expressed no emotion.

  By the Sixth Form green Simonds was shouting across to Meredith:

  “Best of luck, old fellow, and mind you come down for the House supper . . .”

  On the way down to the station Archie Fletcher burst out:

  “Well, thank God, that swine Clarke’s gone. He absolutely mucked up the House.” Gordon agreed.

  “If we had a few more men like Meredith now!” Rather a change had come over the boy who a year before had been shocked at the swearing in the bathroom. “When one is in Rome . . .”

  Book II

  The Tangled Skein

  “Et je m’en vais

  Au vent mauvais

  Qui m’emporte

  Deca dela

  Pareil a la

  Feuille morte.”

  PAUL VERLAINE.

  Chapter I

  Quantum Mutatus

  If Gordon were given the opportunity of living any single year over again, exactly as he had lived it before, he would in all probability have chosen his second year at Fernhurst. He had then put safely out of sight behind him the doubts and anxieties of the junior; he had not yet reached any of the responsibilities of the senior. It was essentially a time of light-hearted laughter, of “rags,” of careless happiness. Every day dawned without a trace of trouble imminent; every night closed with a feed in Mansell’s big study, while the gramophone strummed out rag-time choruses. And yet these three terms were very critical ones in the development of Gordon’s character. Sooner or later everyone must pass through the middle stage Keats speaks of, where “the way of life is uncertain, and the soul is in a ferment.” Most boys have at their preparatory schools been so carefully looked after that they have never learnt to think for themselves. They take everything as a matter of course. They believe implicitly what their masters tell them about what is right and wrong. Life is divided up into so many rules. But when the boy reaches his Public School he finds himself in a world where actions are regulated not by conscience, but by caprice. Boys do what they know is wrong; then invent a theory to prove it is right; and finally persuade themselves that black is white. It is pure chance what the Public School system will make of a boy. During the years of his apprenticeship, so to speak, he merely sits quiet, listening and learning; then comes the middle period, the period in which he is gradually changing into manhood. In it all his former experiences are jumbled hopelessly together, his life is in itself a paradox. He does things without thinking. There is no consistency in his actions. Then finally the threads are unravelled, and out of the disorder of conflicting ideas and emotions the tapestry is woven on the wonderful loom of youth.

  The average person comes through all right. He is selfish, easy-going, pleasure-loving, absolutely without a conscience, for the simple reason that he never thinks. But he is a jolly good companion; and the Freemasonry of a Public School is amazing. No man who has been through a good school can be an outsider. He may hang round the Empire bar, he may cheat at business; but you can be certain of one thing, he will never let you down. Very few Public School men ever do a mean thing to their friends. And for a system that produces such a spirit there is something to be said after all.

  But for the boy with a personality school is very dangerous. Being powerful, he can do nothing by halves; his actions influence not only himself, but many others. On his surroundings during the time of transition from boyhood to manhood depend to a great extent the influence that man will work in the world. He will do whatever he does on a large scale, and people are bound to l
ook at him. He may stand at the head of the procession of progress; he may dash himself to pieces fighting for a worthless cause; and by the splendour of his contest draw many to him. More likely he will be like Byron, a wonderful, irresponsible creature, who at one time plumbed the depths, and at another swept the heavens—a creature irresistibly attractive, because he is irresistibly human. Gordon was a personality. His preparatory school master said of him once: “He will be a great failure or a great success, perhaps both,” and it was the truest thing ever said of him. At present the future was very uncertain. During his first year he had been imbibing knowledge from his contemporaries; he had been a spectator; now the time had come for him to take his part in the drama of Fernhurst life. All ignorant he went his way; careless, arrogant and proud.

  It must be owned that during this year Gordon was rather an objectionable person. He was very much above himself. For five years he had been tightly held in check, and when freedom at last came he did not quite know how to use it. He was boisterous and noisy; always in the middle of everything. If ever there was a row in the studies, it would be a sure assumption that Caruthers was mixed up in it. Everything combined to give him a slack time.

  Ferguson was head of the House. But he took only a casual interest in its welfare.

  “My dear Betteridge,” he used to say, “if you were aware of the large issues of art and life, you would see that it would be a mere waste of time worrying about such a little thing as discipline in a house. You should widen your intellectual horizon. Read Verlaine and Baudelaire and then see life as it is.”

  Ferguson was a poet; twice a term the school magazine was enriched with a poem from his pen. His last effort was called Languor, and opened with the line:

  “In amber dreams of amorous despair.”

  “The Bull” had asked someone in his house what the thing meant. To Ferguson that seemed a high compliment. To be incoherent was a great gift. Swinburne often meant very little, and in his heart of hearts Ferguson thought Languor ‘was, on the whole, more melodious than Dolores. But that was, of course, purely a matter of opinion. At any rate, it was a fine composition; and a poet must not dabble in the common intrigues of little minds.

  He let the House go its own sweet way; and the House was grateful, and gave Ferguson the reputation of being rather a sport. There were no more weekly orders; no more cleaning of corps clothes. There was at last peace in Jerusalem, and plenteousness within her palaces.

  Simonds was captain of the House. He was working hard for a History scholarship, and could not spend much time in looking after House games. There would be tons of time in the Easter term to train on House sides. So he, too, let things slide, and the House lived a happy life. Those who wanted to play footer, played; those who wanted to work, worked; those who wished to do nothing, did nothing. A cheerful philosophy. For a week it worked quite well.

  Gordon was lucky enough to find himself in the position of not only not wanting to work, but also not having to. He had got his promotion into V. A, and found it a land of milk and honey. Macdonald, his form master, was one of the most splendid men Fernhurst has ever owned on its staff. For over forty years he had sat in exactly the same chair, and watched generation after generation pass, without appearing the least bit older. He grew a little stout, perhaps. But his heart was the same. It took a lot to trouble him. He realised that the world was too full of sceptics and cynics, and swore that he would not number himself among them. He was now the senior assistant master and the best scholar on the staff.

  “You know, these young men aren’t what we were,” he used to say to his form; “not one of them can write a decent copy of Latin verses. All these Cambridge men are useless—useless!” In his form it was unnecessary to work very hard; but in it the average boy learnt more than he learnt anywhere else. For Macdonald was essentially a scholar; he did not merely mug up notes by German commentators an hour before the lesson. For him the classics lived; and he made his form realise this. To do Aristophanes with him was far better than any music hall. Horace he hated. One day when they were doing Donec gratus eram tibi, he burst out with wrath:

  “Horrible little cad he was! Can’t you see him? Small man, blue nose with too much drinking. Bibulous little beast. If I had been Lydia I would have smacked his face and told him to go to Chloe. I’d have had done with him. Beastly little cad!”

  But it was in history that he was at his best. It was a noble sight to see him imitate the weak-kneed, slobbering James I; and he had the private scandals of Henry VIII at his finger-tips. For all commentators he had a profound contempt. One day he seized Farrar’s edition of St Luke, and holding it at arm’s-length between his finger and thumb, shook it before the form.

  “Filth,” he cried, “filth and garbage; take it away and put it down the water-closet.” He had a genius for spontaneous comments. Kennedy was very nervous; and whenever he said his rep. he used to hold the seat of his trousers.

  “Man, man!” Macdonald shouted out, “you won’t be able to draw any inspiration from your stern.”

  His form would be in a continuous roar of laughter all day long; and when particularly pleased it always rubbed its feet on the floor, a strange custom that had lasted many years. Claremont’s form-room was situated just above him, and he could often hardly hear himself speak. He used to complain bitterly.

  “How I wish my jovial colleague down below would keep his form a little more in order.”

  But Macdonald got his revenge one day when Claremont was reciting Macbeth’s final speech fortissimo to his form.

  “Hush!” said Macdonald. “We must listen to this.” Suddenly he chuckled to himself: “And do you think he really imagines he is doing any good to his form by giving that nigger minstrel entertainment up there?”

  The roar of laughter that followed quite spoilt the effect of the recitation. Work became quite impossible in V.B.

  It was about this time that the House began to interest itself in the welfare of Rudd. Rudd was the senior scholar of the year before, and he looked like it. He was fairly tall and very thin. His legs bore little relation to the rest of his body. They fell into place. He was of a dusky countenance, partly because he was of Byzantine origin, partly because he never shaved, chiefly because he did not wash. His clothes always looked as if they had been rolled up into a bundle and used for dormitory football. Perhaps they had. Rudd was not really a bad fellow. He was by way of being a wit. One day the Chief had set the form a three-hour Divinity paper, consisting of four longish questions. One was: “Do you consider that the teaching of Socrates was in some respects more truly Christian than that of St Paul?” Rudd showed up a whole sheet with one word on it: “Yes.” Next day his Sixth Form privileges were taken away. But the House took little notice of his academic audacities. Rudd did not wash; he was an insanitary nuisance; moreover, he did not play footer.

  “That man Rudd is a disgrace to the House,” Archie announced one evening after tea; “he’s useless to the House; he slacks at rugger and is unclean. Let’s ship his study.” There was a buzz of assent. There was a good deal of rowdyism going on in the House just then; and at times it would have been hard to draw the exact borderline between ragging and bullying. A solemn procession moved to Study No. 14. Rudd was working.

  “Hullo, Byzantium,” said Mansell. “How goes it?”

  “Oh, get out, you; I want to work!”

  “Gentlemen, Mr Rudd wishes to work,” Betteridge announced. “The question is, shall he be allowed to? I say ‘No!’” He suddenly jerked away the chair Rudd was sitting on: the owner of the study collapsed on the floor.

  Archie at once loosed a tremendous kick at his back.

  “Get up, you dirty swine! Haven’t you any manners? Stand up when you are talking to gentlemen.”

  Rudd had a short temper; he let out and caught Mansell on the chin. It is no fun ragging a man who doesn’t lose his temper. But, as far as Mansell was concerned, proceedings were less cordial after this. He leapt on Rudd
, bore him to the ground, and sat on his head. Foul language was audible from the bottom of the floor. Rudd had not studied Euripides for nothing. Lovelace picked up a hockey stick. “This, gentlemen,” he began, “is a hockey stick, useful as an implement of offence if the prisoner gets above himself, and also useful as a means of destroying worthless property. I ask you, gentlemen, it is right that, while we should have only three chairs among two people, Rudd should have two all to himself? Gentlemen, I propose to destroy that chair.”

  In a few minutes the chair was in fragments. A crowd began to collect.

  “I say, you men,” shouted Gordon, “the refuse heap is just opposite; let’s transfer all the waste paper of the last ten years and bury the offender.”

  Just across the passage was a long, blind-alley effect running under the stairs, which was used as a store for waste paper. It was cleaned out about once every generation. In a few minutes waste-paper baskets had been “bagged” from adjoining studies, and No. 14 was about a foot deep in paper.

  “That table is taking up too much room, Lovelace,” Bradford bawled out; “smash it up.”

  The table went to join the chair in the Elysian Fields. Rudd was now almost entirely immersed in paper. The noise was becoming excessive. Oaths floated down the passage.

  At last Ferguson moved. In a blase way he strolled down the passage. For a minute he was an amused spectator, then he said languidly: “Suppose we consider the meeting adjourned. I think it’s nearly half-time.” Gradually the crowd began to clear; Rudd rose out of the paper like Venus out of the water. A roar of laughter broke out.

  “Well, Rudd, I sincerely hope you are insured,” murmured Ferguson.

  What Rudd said is unprintable. In his bill at the end of the term his father found there was a charge of ten shillings for damaged property in Study No. 14. Rudd got less pocket-money the next term.