The Elderbrook Brothers

by Gerald Bullet

  But Matthew, too, had his discontents. He was not quite the lump of meek good-natured earth that a superficial observer might have taken him for. Joe was a zealot in farming, and like all zealots he had an aptitude for tyranny. He had married comparatively late and was now an old man. He had had precisely his own way for so many years that the mere notion of conceding another and a younger man’s point of view affronted him. Whatever he might say of Matthew, in moments mellowed by drinking with his cronies, he never allowed this model son of his to forget who was master, and he was quick to resent in him anything that looked like independent action. Nor was he generous in the matter of pay. The boy had a good home, hadn’t he? And if there was anything he wanted, a new suit of clothes, a horse of his own to ride, or even one of these newfangled freewheel bicycles, he had only to ask. So what could he want with a salary, like any hired labourer? ‘And when I’m gone,’ he said, arguing the point with a tire-somely persistent Emily, ‘he’ll have the whole place, my lass, and the best part of what goes with it.’ It seemed to Joe that Matthew was a very lucky fellow; and Matthew, being patient, bore with him, refrained from crossing him, and kept his own counsel. He was fond of his father: the bond between them was deep. Yet there were times when if he could he would have broken away and set up on his own account, somewhere else. As his father grew more and more difficult—tachety was the Mercestershire word for it—he began to long for a farm and family of his own. A family of sons. He wanted sons before he was fully conscious of wanting a wife. He wanted sons (he said to himself) if only to show how they should be treated to get the best out of them. And that would be very differently from the way his father treated him. Three sons he would have, and perhaps two daughters; and he oddly failed to notice that that was precisely the pattern of the family in which he himself was part.

  Joe, in his ripe age, grew sententious. The enunciation of aged platitudes became a habit with him. If a difference of opinion arose about whether or not some new machine or method should be given a trial he would say: ‘What was good enough for my father ought to be good enough for my son.’ In this he did himself scant justice; for in fact, though he did not remember it, he had often enough disputed with his own father, and improved on that father’s ways whenever he had a chance. History, which is human nature writ large, was at its old trick. We live and do not learn.

  § 14

  Guy’s Aunt Dolly—for Guy was her favourite—lived in an outlying suburb of Mercester, on the very edge of the country, whence, about once a year, she visited Upmarden. She was Joe’s eldest sister and the widow of a Mercester jeweller known as ‘poor Morton’ or ‘your Uncle Morton’: a small, lean, leathery-faced old lady with bright birdlike eyes, nutcracker features, and a freedom of speech surpassing her brother’s. She insisted not merely on coming, but on being invited in due form, by Emily, in a series of letters that began by hoping that dear Dolly would soon be able to spare time to ‘pay us your long promised visit’ and ended by assuring her that the day she suggested was more than convenient, it was perfect, that everybody was enchanted by the prospect of seeing her, and that the train would be punctually met by Joe or one of the boys. When this ceremony had achieved its purpose, and the guest been secured, Emily did not scruple to tell her, in her mild way, what she thought of it. ‘Why you always wait to be asked, Dolly, is a mystery and a wonder. Is Joe your brother or isn’t he?’ ‘Brother indeed, my dear,’ said Aunt Dolly, ‘and a rare scamp he was, I can tell you. But he’s only the man about the place here. You’re the one that counts.’ ‘Ah yes,’ Emily would retort, with a double irony. ‘And you’ve only known me six-and-twenty years. Almost strangers we are.’ Aunt Dolly took the banter in good part and admitted the justice of it, but it made no difference: the procedure had always to be followed, and in time the banter itself became a ritual part of it.

  In the eyes of the children Aunt Dolly was prodigiously old, so old that she apparently had difficulty in remembering that Joe was not still a little boy. ‘Well, Joey dear, how are the crops?’ she would say, in exactly the same tone, kindly and half-humorous, as she used towards Felix in asking if he still liked his wonderful grammar school and was he learning his lessons nicely. And on Joe’s assuring her in his genial barking voice that all was well on the farm she would answer indulgently: ‘That’s right, dearie. There’s a clever boy!’ This attitude to their father astounded the children, and as they grew older it secretly delighted them. Emily, still fond, somewhat ruefully shared their amusement. She had by now given up pretending to herself that Joe was not always a stubborn old man, but the pretence was still carefully maintained, so far as possible, in front of others.

  Because Guy was ‘her boy’ Aunt Dolly gave him, as we have seen, a peculiarly glorious satchel. On that same visit she brought a bracelet for Emily, a ring for each of the girls, a pair of hairbrushes in a leather case for Matthew, a penknife for Felix, and for Joe a box of cigars which she handed to him with an ironical air seeming to imply that marbles or a humming-top would perhaps have been more suitable for her little brother. This lavishness was unusual, but, as Aunt Dolly remarked, you didn’t have a Jubilee every year.

  ‘Oh Dolly, you shouldn’t!’ cried Emily, fondling her bracelet. ‘And the rings too! My girls won’t know themselves with such finery.’

  ‘All trash, lovey,’ said Aunt Dolly cheerfully. ‘Traveller’s samples they call them. Traveller’s rubbish if you ask me. Nobody was fool enough to buy ’em, so poor Morton gave ’em to me. Been cluttering up the house too long, dear. Throw ’em away if you can’t do with them.’

  Guy said: ‘I bet my satchel wasn’t a traveller’s sample, Aunt Dolly.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Aunt Dolly, ‘he’s a smart boy, young Guy is. Takes after his mother, eh Joey? What are you going to be when you grow up, Guy?’

  ‘A man, I suppose, Auntie.’

  ‘Hark at that!’ cried Aunt Dolly triumphantly. ‘Didn’t I say he was a smart boy!’

  ‘He’s a very cheeky boy, seemingly,’ said Emily. ‘He’ll be a farmer like Matthew. Won’t you, Guy?’

  Conscious of his father’s sharp glance, Guy could not say no but would not say yes. The question went unanswered and was not pressed. Emily did not press it because she wanted her boys to do, within reason, what they pleased; and Joe did not press it because he took it for granted that like everyone else in the family Guy would do as he was told when the time came. It was a grievance of Joe’s that Guy didn’t lend a hand on the farm as often as he ought: he was always either begging himself off or merely going off, no word said, on his own mysterious devices. Both Matthew and Cowlin winked at these truancies. Mr Cowlin, indeed, himself took time off from his convivial drinking, in order to bestow it freely on Guy. To foster Guy’s ambition gave Cowlin a satisfaction akin to that of artistic creation. No longer did he dream of writing a parish history: here was his book. But seeing how the land lay he wisely kept himself in the background, doing almost by stealth that for which another man might have expected, or at least disclaimed, parental gratitude, not to speak of hard cash. All he ventured on, when by chance he met Joe in the High Street, was casual commendation. ‘He’ll make his little mark one day, Mr Elderbrook, that boy of yours.’ This was rather more than the school reports said of Felix; and Joe was half-nettled, wondering if he had backed the wrong boy. ‘Guy, d’ye mean?’ ‘Who else? He’s getting along nicely with his Latin.’ ‘Huh! Latin won’t tell him the weight of a fat bullock. Latin!’ He made scornful eyes at the idea. ‘Since when have you been teaching that fandangle to the village?’ And now, seeing Guy evade his mother’s question, Joe recalled that scrap of conversation and half-wondered whether there was anything behind it, whether Guy was perhaps nursing notions of his own about his future; but he was too sure pf having his own way with him to be over-curious in the matter.

  ‘The lad’s lost his tongue, it seems,’ said Joe. ‘P’raps it comes of learning Latin, eh?’

  Guy blushed. He was startled and disconcerte
d. He wondered how much of that secret remained his own.

  Sister Nancy said slyly: ‘P’raps he’s in love. He’s got a young lady now. Did you know that, Aunt Dolly?’

  Matthew, more than Guy, was uneasy at this change of subject. Guy’s rapidly maturing friendship with the Linnets, and particularly with Eva Linnet, had the effect of making this elder brother think himself a clodhopper. Was it lack of enterprise or of interest that had hindered Matthew from following up that chance meeting on the bowling-green two or three summers ago? Or was it the humiliating conviction that she liked his young brother better? It was not to be supposed that Miss Linnet, a young woman of nearly twenty years who played the piano and spoke French, could seriously interest herself in a mere schoolboy; but she did, for some reason, encourage if not provoke Guy’s young, bland, faintly quizzical attentions. Matthew, more perceptive than he was given credit for being, was aware that during the past twelve months Guy had fashioned for himself something that was almost a new personality. He did not always wear it, and sometimes when he was wearing it the raw child he still was showed through; but evidently he had charm enough to engage the good will of the Linnet family, and it was a stock family joke that Eva was ‘Guy’s young lady’.

  Faith said softly: ‘Don’t be such a tease, Nancy!’ For there was a pinch of malice in Nancy’s chaff.

  ‘Starting young, boy. Chip of the old block,’ said Joe.

  ‘And why not?’ said Aunt Dolly. ‘You can’t begin too soon. Better a young fool than an old one. Take your old auntie’s advice, boy, and get it over while you’re young, like measles. Let them all come, dozens of ‘em, all sorts and sizes. Male and female created he them. Yes indeed,’ said Aunt Dolly grimly, ‘and fine larks they get up to. But Nature knows best. Now take your poor Uncle Morton. Good as gold he was, when a young man. Never looked at a woman before he tackled me. And when I say tackled-’

  ‘Dolly dear! The children!’ said Emily, with a hand on her arm.

  ‘What? Eh? But it’s all in the Bible, lovey. You can’t go wrong if you keep to the Bible. Male and female it says, plain as print, and that was where poor Morton went wrong. Shy as a squirrel till he’s a grown man, thinks wenches are made of muslin and modesty. Then, come thirty, and hey presto what have we here? A raging lion if you please, so as I didn’t dare have a girl in the house, except she was so ugly I couldn’t bear the sight of her. Wild oats? We had ‘em for breakfast every day. That’s what comes of trying to teach Nature. Don’t you do it, Guy.’

  Joe roared with laughter; his sister joined him; and soon the whole company were laughing, though half of them hardly knew why.

  ‘But I’m sure,’ said Emily, with anxious emphasis, ‘the Linnets are very nice respectable people. Mr Linnet’s the bank manager. It’s very kind of them to take an interest in Guy. He rides over to see them nearly every week in the summer, don’t you, Guy?’

  ‘On my bicycle,’ said Matthew.

  Nancy, a persistent child, said: ‘Is she very good-looking, Guy? Do you dream about her much?’

  ‘Not much, dear child,’ said Guy, with his cultivated mannerism, copied perhaps from Cowlin’s. ‘But she’s a nice little Linnet in her way,’ he conceded airily.

  The remark was a success. It was recognized as ‘just like Guy’ and remarkably unlike the Guy of not so long ago. Urbane waggery had become part of his social technique. The self-confidence to which he pretended had become a real part of him. The slighted little boy lived on, but was no longer to be seen.

  § 15

  It was not to be denied that Clifford put on airs; but no one, except conceivably the masters, thought the worse of him for that, for the airs were indeed put on, like fancy dress. After four years of knowing Clifford at a distance, for the occupation of adjacent beds had lasted only one term, Felix was elevated to the Upper Fifth, the form which Clifford, with no wish for a further remove, had been good enough to adorn for the past twelve months. Hollis and Abbott, two of the original Three Highwaymen, had achieved the same eminence in an earlier term than Felix, and their triple alliance, rooted mainly in propinquity, had painlessly dissolved.

  The Upper Fifth classroom accommodated some thirty to thirty-five boys. It was a shabby but agreeable room, permeated with the savour of antiquity, its furniture well-worn, its boarded floor unpolished, its pale green walls quite bare of decoration except for a large map of the world upon which the Queen’s scattered Empire showed conspicuously red. At the back of the room, and therefore furthest from the master’s customary stance, were a number of desks that had survived from an earlier age, possibly from an earlier century, and were known among the boys as ‘pulpits’. They were taller and larger, as well as older and dingier, than the general run of schoolroom desks, and by persons of discrimination were much coveted. Each pulpit accommodated one boy only, and if you were so lucky as to secure one you had not only a high back to lean against, and a cross bar to rest your feet on, but excellent cover from the prying eyes of authority should you wish to nurse in your lap a book, a bag of toffee, a string of conkers, or any other admired possession. Clifford’s pulpit was in the extreme corner against the west wall, and by a miracle of inadvertence on somebody else’s part the one next to him, newly vacated, remained vacant long enough for Felix to swoop down upon it and take possession with the ritual cry of ‘Bags I!’ Clifford remarked, with raised eyebrows: ‘There’s a brave little man!’ To which Felix, now fourteen, retorted boldly: ‘Brave little man yourself, old boy!’ The eyebrows rose higher still, and Felix said, grinning shyly: ‘Do you mind, Clifford, me sitting next to you?’ ‘Not at all, dear child,’ said Clifford kindly. ‘Your artless prattle will do my old heart good.’

  Clifford was an excellent neighbour. His solemn quips were a good antidote to the less amiable sarcasms of Mr Fletton, the form-master. With all his parade of indolence, and his serene assumption that schoolwork must never be allowed to interfere with one’s private conversation, he had his seasons of industry and was seldom at a loss for the right answer. Felix, full of qualms at having won a double remove (for the Lower Fifth had been by-passed in his ascent), considered himself lucky to have Clifford so near at hand, and never more so than on the morning, early in the new term, when Mr. Fletton did one of his tricks.

  ‘Now, boys,’ he said, with specious gaiety, ‘we have two minutes to spare before our friend Mr Plo-ver comes, to instruct you in the graphic arts. So we’ll have a few questions in general knowledge. There are strangers in our midst, boys whose unparalleled diligence has translated them to this place from lower regions. Tell me, Elderbrook: what, my boy, is the equator?’

  Felix sat silent and looked blank. He reddened slowly under Mr. Fletton’s pointed stare. On matters that did not engage his interest he had preserved, through four years of intensive schooling, a dense ignorance; and the equator was one of many mysteries his mind had no use for.

  Prompted by a murmuring at his side he presently said: ‘An imaginary line running round the earth, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Mr Fletton. ‘And then, Elderbrook?’ Felix was silent again: his confusion was absolute. ‘Why, pray, does this line so obligingly run round the earth? To what end or purpose? You don’t know? Come, come. That’s not possible, my boy. Such ignorance in a member of the Upper Fifth is inconceivable. Perhaps you consider the question too elementary to be worth your answering? Perhaps you disdain us, eh?’

  Felix tried again. ‘An imaginary line running round the earth, dividing the surface of the earth into two hemispheres.’

  ‘Correct, but … Clifford, did I hear you prompting Elderbrook?’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir.’

  ‘Don’t prevaricate, sir. Either you did or you did not.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir. I understood you to ask whether you heard me doing so, not whether I did so.’

  ‘That piece of impudence will cost you an imposition, Clifford.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. May I ask a question, sir?’ Clifford put up his hand, c
eremonial preamble to asking a question. ‘Will you please tell us why the earth has to be divided into two hemispheres? I mean, sir, it’s awfully decent of the equator to take so much trouble. But will you tell us why?’

  The door of the classroom opened and a diversion was created by the entry of Mr Plover the drawing master. It was Mr Fletton’s whim always to refer to this colleague as ‘Mr Plover’, but the man himself was innocent of any such affectation: his Plover rhymed with glover. A long, lackadaisical, soft-speaking young man, he did not at all suggest or resemble the bird his namesake; and because he was unmagisterial his hour was one of the more welcome sessions of the week. Today he came carrying a soup basin which he had borrowed from the headmaster’s kitchen, and into this basin, from a bulging pocket, he heaped up a pyramid of acorns.