by James Hilton
He spent Christmas, as he had so often done, in his rooms across the road. There were no visitors, but he was fairly busy. There had been a few details of cancellation to put in order; the promised gifts of food were transferred to hospitals; outside guests were notified that owing to . . . etc. etc., it was much regretted that the party could not be held. But the decorations remained in the Hall, half finished, and Richards's vaunted footlights, in an embryo stage of dangling flex, impeded the progress of anyone who might seek to mount the platform; but no one did. Then the last of the sick-room unfortunates recovered and went home, shaking hands with Chips as the latter doled out money for the train fare. 'Happy Christmas, sir.'
'Thank you, Tunstall--umph--and the same to you, my boy.'
Christmas Eve brought rain in the late afternoon; it had been a cold day with grey scudding clouds. No school bell sounded across the air, and that to Chips gave a curious impression of timelessness, so that when he sat by the fire and read the paper the moments swam easily towards the dinner hour. 'You'll join me, Mrs. Wickett, in--umph--a glass of wine?' he had said, and she had answered, with familiar reluctance: 'Oh dear, I dunno as I ought, sir; it does go to me head so.'
But she did, of course, and in that little room, with the old-fashioned Victorian furniture and the red-and-blue carpet and the photographs of School groups on the walls, Chips made light of any disappointment that was in him.
'Well, sir, if you was to ask me, I'd say it was proper Providence, it was, for it's my belief the fuss of it all would have knocked you up--that it would, and Doctor Merivale said the same, knowin' what a lively set-to them boys was going to make of it.'
'Were they, Mrs. Wickett? Umph--umph--well, they're all enjoying their own parties now--more than--umph--they'd have enjoyed anything here--umph--that's very certain!'
'Oh no, sir, I don't think that, sir.'
'Mrs. Wickett--umph--no normal healthy-minded boy--umph--ever wants to stay at school a moment longer than he needs--umph--and I'm glad to say that my boys are--umph--almost excessively normal! When is it that they're due back--January 15th--umph--eh?'
'That's right, sir. Term begins on the 15th.'
'Umph--three weeks more.'
After dinner he decided to write some letters, and as he had left an address-book in his school desk he walked across the road through the gusty rain and unlocked his way into the chilly rooms and corridors where his feet guided him unerringly. A strange place, an empty school. Full of ghosts, full of echoes of voices, full of that sad smell of stale ink, varnish, and the carbolic soap that the charwomen used. In every classroom a scrap of writing on the blackboard, words or figures, some last thing done before the world lost its inhabitants. And on a whitewashed wall in a deserted corridor Chips saw, roughly scrawled in pencil, what looked at first to be some odd mathematical calculation:
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
Which, of course, at second glance he perfectly understood; nay more, he could imagine the joy of the eager calculator when, after that memorable Sunday, the last eight digits of the progression had been spared him! And possibly that same calculator, at this very moment on Christmas Eve, was giving a rueful thought to the date that lay ahead--January 15th--'only three more weeks!' Boys were like that.
He found his book and relocked the doors; then, back in Mrs. Wickett's house again, he wrote his letters. Like most of his, they were written to old boys of the School, and like most letters to old boys they were now addressed to camps and armies throughout the world. Chips was not a particularly good letter-writer. His jokes came to him only in speech; in letters he was always very simple and direct and (if you thought so) rather dull. Indeed, one of their recipients (a much cleverer man than Chips) had once called them affectionately 'the letter of a schoolmaster by a schoolboy.' Just this sort of thing:
'DEAR BRADLEY,
'I am very glad to hear you are getting on well after your bad smash. We have had a pretty fair term, on the whole (beat Barnhurst twice at rugger), but an epidemic of 'flu attacked us near the end, interfering with the House matches and one or two other affairs. We broke up ten days early on account of this. Mr. Godley has been called up, despite his age and health, so we are understaffed again. We had an air-raid in October, but no one at the School was hurt. If you get leave and can spare the time, do come and see me here. We begin term on January 15th. . . .'
Chips wrote several of these letters; then he sat by the fire over his evening cup of tea. All that he had not said, and could never say or write, flooded his mind at the thought of a world so full of bloodshed and peril; and then, in answer, came the thought of those boys who might, by happier chance, miss such peril as carelessly and as cheerfully as they had missed his party. And he prayed, seated and silent: God, bring peace on earth . . . goodwill to men and boys. . . .
'Will ye be wantin' anything more, sir?'
'No thank you, Mrs. Wickett.'
'Happy Christmas to you, sir.'
'And the same--umph--to you, Mrs. Wickett.'
'Thank you, sir. It don't seem long, sir, since--'
Mrs. Wickett always had to say that it didn't seem long since last Christmas, or last Good Friday, or last Sports Day, or some other annual occasion. Chips smiled as she did so--a gentle smile, for there was something in his mind that was always tolerant of tradition. We have our ways, and if we are good folk our ways are fondly endured. 'Time goes so quickly, sir, you 'ardly know where you are. Only another three weeks and we'll 'ave the beginning of term again. . . .'
'Yes--umph--only another three weeks,' answered Chips. And that, of course, was probably what the boys were saying. But Chips, thinking of those lonely classrooms, meant it differently.
THE END
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN