CHAPTER IIMR. FLAGGON PAYS A VISIT
Theelection of Mr. Flaggon was followed immediately by the resignation of Mr. Cox. Mr. Cox was in the habit of resigning whenever his proposals were voted down or his advice neglected. Dr. Gussy had, at various times, received twelve such communications from him and, on each occasion, had found no difficulty in persuading Mr. Cox to reconsider his decision. There is every reason to suppose that Mr. Cox expected a similar issue to his thirteenth act of protest. But he had chosen his time badly. Dr. Gussy merely said, “Ino longer count,” and forwarded the letter to the headmaster elect. And the headmaster elect, unfamiliar with Mr. Cox’s idiosyncrasies and much impressed by his age, which was seventy-five, accepted the resignation in a courteous and gracious spirit.
Mr. Cox had so long regarded himself as an integral and necessary part of Chiltern and the Lanchester tradition that he wasmortified to find how calmly his departure was taken. His colleagues, indeed, were most sympathetic, and said that his going would be a terrible break with the past, and that they would miss him increasingly. But they added that they thought he had acted very wisely in choosing this particular moment to leave them; and this was not the sort of consolation that Mr. Cox expected or desired. It is said that he still regards himself as the first and most notable victim of the new régime, and speaks contemptuously of “poor old Gussy, who couldn’t play a winning hand even when he held all the trumps.” How exactly the handshouldhave been played is not clear; but the implication is that Mr. Cox’s resignation was the ace of trumps, and that, rightly used, it would have brought the Council to its senses and prevented untold calamities.
But, if Mr. Cox’s resignation was taken calmly, Mr. Flaggon’s appointment continued to stir Chiltern to its lowest depths. Articles were disinterred from the back numbers of magazines, educational or otherwise, in which Mr. Flaggon had spoken slightingly of the public schools and public school methods; and the press was deplorable. The Liberal dailies hailed the appointment as the beginning of a new era and the death-blow to an antiquated tradition. Even a leadingConservative journal, which should have known better, described the election as a daring but interesting experiment, and proceeded to sketch an ideal curriculum, for the benefit of the new headmaster, in which Greek was abolished and its place taken by compulsory military drill. The Council blushed uneasily at finding itself suddenly in the van of progress, and began to say harsh things about its Chairman; and its Chairman was only partially comforted by an assurance from the distinguished person behind the scenes that they had chosen the best man in, “a man who will think before he acts and who will go far.” For to the Chairman the ideal headmaster was rather a man who would mark time decorously than an explorer of untrodden ways.
To the masters the suggestion that Chiltern needed reforming—“turning inside out,” they called it—was, to say the least, unpalatable. As practical men they despised the theorist; and, of all forms of theorist, the one that they most disliked was the educational enthusiast—the innovator, the impostor. Mr. Pounderly went about with a scared face and mysterious air, whispering “lamentable, lamentable” to his colleagues; and Mr. Woburn, the scientist, who affected metaphors and frequently mixed them, declared that, though the Classics were undoubtedly overdone at Chiltern, hehated the idea of a man who would always be trying experiments and pulling them up by the roots to see how they were shaping.
The idea of petitioning the Council against the appointment had been abandoned, partly on the advice of the moderates, but chiefly for lack of support from the juniors. For, on second thoughts, the juniors discovered that they did not want the new headmaster to be a nominee and creature of the veterans. The senior masters at Chiltern were famous for their longevity and for the tenacious way in which they clung to the posts of vantage; and, if change meant only a gradual shifting of the senior masters, there was something to be said in favour of change. But it was clearly understood that, if Mr. Flaggon attempted to drive his staff along new and unfamiliar ways, he would find them a most awkward and intractable team to handle.
Amid the babel of tongues there was one man who maintained what was, for him, an attitude of unusual reserve. This was Mr. Chowdler, the strong man of Chiltern. Mr. Chowdler owed his reputation for strength, not to any breadth of view or depth of sympathetic insight, but to a sublime unconsciousness of his own limitations. Narrow but concentrated, with an aggressive will and a brusque intolerance of all who differed from him, he was a fighter who lovedfighting for its own sake and who triumphed through the sheer exhaustion of his enemies; and a Term in which he did not engage in at least one mortal combat was to him a blank Term. A tall man, with broad shoulders, round head, thin sandy hair, and full lips, he caught the eye in whatever company he might be, and his resonant voice arrested attention. At golfing centres, in the holidays, he was not always a very popular figure. But his confident manner impressed parents, and his was consideredthehouse at Chiltern. People often wondered why he had never stood for headmasterships or sought a wider scope for the exercise of power. In reality he had never felt the need. He had so completely identified himself with Chiltern that it never even occurred to him to leave it; and his had for many years been the master mind that shaped the destinies of the school.
In saying this we are not forgetting the existence of Dr. Gussy. But Dr. Gussy, though he had been the titular chief for nearly a quarter of a century, had long ceased to be the ruling spirit. In vulgar phrase, he had allowed Mr. Chowdler to “run him,” and it was generally supposed to be weariness of bondage rather than of power which had induced him to resign before the completion of his twenty-fifth year of office. In appearance he was a complete contrast to his formidablelieutenant. Small and rather fragile, with silver-white hair and a refined, delicately moulded face that suggested Dresden china, he was the type of the old-fashioned scholar. Though there was nothing commanding in his personality it was none the less distinguished, and the thinness of a high-pitched, and sometimes almost squeaky, voice was atoned for by the perfection of his articulation. In his younger days he had taken a prominent place among the champions of the Oxford Movement, and, if he had not become a headmaster, he might have been notorious as a theologian; indeed, his commentary on the Epistle of St. Clement is admitted by all to be a remarkable work. Fathers of Chiltern boys loved to hear him read the lessons, and mothers frequently remarked, “What a lovely face!” But he was by nature too refined and sensitive to cope successfully with the robust methods of Mr. Chowdler, and, after struggling fitfully for some years, he had purchased comparative peace by an irritable submission. Mrs. Chowdler, an obtuse little woman who worshipped her husband and imagined that everybody at Chiltern shared her admiration, used to say that “Harry” was the headmaster’s better self. She had herself always been ready and willing to be a sister to Mrs. Gussy; but after a long series ofpointed rebuffs she had abandoned the attempt, and the relations between the two families were official rather than cordial.
It was not likely that Mr. Chowdler would approve of the new appointment; indeed, he seldom approved of any arrangement that was not of his own making. But his attitude was one of amused banter rather than of fierce hostility, and he spoke with a good-natured smile of the “Empty Flaggon.” “Wait and see” was his advice. “You will find that the place and its traditions are too strong for the empty one. He may froth and he may fume, but he can’t hurt us. We are strong enough to assimilate a whole cellarful of Flaggons.”
These and similar remarks made it clear to the initiated that Mr. Chowdler proposed to run the new headmaster, as he had run his predecessor.
In the middle of July Mr. Flaggon paid his first visit to Chiltern. The position of a headmaster elect is a delicate one, and he wisely declined to be introduced formally to the school. If omens count for anything, the circumstances of this visit were inauspicious; for it coincided with a period of four-and-twenty hours of continuous rain. Mr. Flaggon carried away a general impression of gloom and dripping umbrellas; but one incident, trivial in itself, left a permanentrecord on his memory. During one of the brief pauses in the downpour, he was walking with Dr. Gussy across Colonus towards the Lanchester workshops, and, on the way, met three of the bigger boys who were sauntering slowly in the opposite direction. There was something about their gait and manner which, if not exactly insolent, at least suggested a complete absence of anything like awe in the presence of their headmaster. They gave a perfunctory salute; and, before they passed out of earshot, a voice, which made no attempt to lower itself, remarked:
“Is that the new Gus?”
“Looks like it,” replied a second voice, in the same devil-take-me-if-I-care tone, “unless it’s his shuvver.”
Mr. Flaggon, who with the principles of a democrat combined all the instincts of a despot, lifted his eyebrows in surprise and his fingers tightened unconsciously round the handle of his umbrella. But Dr. Gussy appeared to be quite unconcerned and made no comment.
Under the depressing climatic conditions the hours passed rather slowly. Dr. Gussy was courtesy itself, but he found it impossible to be cordial or communicative to a man who was the last person he would have chosen as his successor; and Mr. Flaggon felt it a relief when Mrs. Gussy carried him off to inspectthe house and talk fixtures. Dr. Gussy had wisely left all the business arrangements in the hands of his wife, a capable woman with all the capable woman’s contempt for the supposed ignorance of a young man and a bachelor; and it soon became evident that Mrs. Gussy intended to take full advantage of her superior knowledge. With a happy mixture of adroitness and authority she forced upon the incoming tenant the oldest carpets and the least successful bits of furniture; and, with equal skill, she secured a tacit permission to carry off some of the more desirable fixtures.
“We are taking the tiles with us to the Deanery,” she would say, pointing to a fireplace; “but, of course, we shall leave you the linoleum and that very useful deal cupboard. They were both made for the room.”
Mr. Flaggon had no desire to haggle, but he had the Northerner’s dislike of being done; and, before the round was over, he found himself in revolt. Mrs. Gussy described him afterwards as “close”; and Mr. Flaggon, in relating his experiences to his mother, said that if Mrs. Gussy had been a little less autocratic, she would have made an excellent saleswoman. The youngest Miss Gussy, a girl of seventeen and the only other member of the family who was at home, did not put in an appearance. She could notbring herself to shake hands with the supplanter of her father, the “horrid man” who was going to live intheirhouse and enjoytheirgarden. If Mr. Flaggon had been an angel from Heaven, she would have hated him with equal fervour. So she withdrew for the day to the Pounderlys’ and contented herself with a glimpse of “the man” from a window; which glimpse confirmed her in her worst forebodings. Mrs. Chowdler, who had a talent for saying the wrong thing, remarked that it would be “a very happy coincidence” if Mr. Flaggon and Miss Gussy took a fancy to each other, as it would give a continuity to life at Chiltern and make the impending change “so much less felt.” With the object of promoting such a match she spoke warmly to the youngest Miss Gussy of the new headmaster’s personal appearance, and was dismayed at the violent outburst which her eulogy provoked.
In the evening, after dinner, Mr. Chowdler called by arrangement and carried off his new chief, nominally to introduce him over a quiet pipe to a few colleagues, but really to take his measure and begin the training of which he was supposed to be in need.
Mr. Flaggon did not smoke, neither did he drink; but he was placed in the easiest of the study chairs, next to the fireplace, and the colleagues lit their pipes and arrangedthemselves in a semicircle round the empty grate. There is always something singularly dispiriting about an empty grate on a wet summer evening, and a semicircular formation round it emphasises its forlornness. The colleagues were conscious of a feeling of constraint. After all that they had been saying and thinking about him in the past week, they were shy of being over-cordial to their new chief, and some of them felt a little as if they were taking part in a conspiracy, engineered by Chowdler, to exploit the inexperience of the new man.
Mr. Flaggon, for his part, did not possess the easy manner and command of small talk which put strangers at their ease. Though anxious to be friendly, he was by nature reticent, one of those who, in new surroundings, are more disposed to receive impressions than to create them. So, after a little desultory talk about the golf links, and several ineffective openings that led into blind alleys, the conversation suddenly expired, and the colleagues found themselves gazing desperately at three iron bars and some unhealthy-looking green and yellow paper behind them.
This was the psychological moment for Mr. Chowdler. Hitherto he had been busy pouring out whisky-and-sodas and struggling with a refractory pipe; but he now satdown opposite the guest of the evening and opened the main attack.
“I suppose,” he began, “that you have been hearing a good deal to-day about our great headmaster Dr. Lanchester. Have you ever studied his life?”
“I have indeed,” replied Mr. Flaggon; “in fact, it was one of the first books that excited my interest in public school education. It might, no doubt, have been better written; but it is, in its way, I think, one of the most suggestive books in the English language.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” cried Mr. Chowdler. “I’m so glad to hear you say that; because you know, we cling very,veryfaithfully here to our past and our great Conservative tradition.”
“Aren’t you forgetting,” said Mr. Flaggon quickly, “that Dr. Lanchester was always considered a Radical?”
Mr. Chowdlerhadforgotten; all Chiltern was in the habit of forgetting this unpleasant fact. But he would not own to any lapse of memory, and his voice took on a note of challenge as he replied:
“Oh, a name doesn’t frightenme; there’s nothing in a name; names are only the coinage of the foolish. Lanchester was a man of very Conservative instincts. He was not one of those who love change for change’s sake. He was a restorer, not a destroyer.”
“It must be difficult to be the one without the other,” remarked Mr. Flaggon quietly; “and I have always heard that Dr. Lanchester was both.”
Antipathies are often physical as well as moral, and the two men suddenly became conscious of a kind of physical distaste for one another. In Chowdler’s fleshy limbs, broad shoulders, bullet head, and aggressive manner, Mr. Flaggon saw for the moment the personification of that narrow but confident prejudice which blocks progress and strangles reform; while Mr. Chowdler realised acutely that “the man Flaggon” would easily get on his nerves. There was an awkward pause which Mr. Beadle filled by remarking:
“You must have found it very interesting work tutoring a foreign prince.”
But Mr. Chowdler, though momentarily disconcerted, was not to be diverted from his main purpose; and, before Mr. Flaggon could frame a reply, he interposed again with:
“Talking of princes reminds me of something that happened to me a little while ago.”
Mr. Chowdler had a large stock of anecdotes with which his colleagues were painfully familiar, for he was never afraid of repeating himself. In theory Mr. Chowdler scorned sentimentality and even sentiment, but in practice his stories were nearly all of thesentimental order and related how small boys had looked up at him wistfully, or old boys had grasped his hand with manly tears in their eyes. And both wistful small boys and manly old boys had nearly always contrived to say something illuminating about the Lanchester tradition.
When once Mr. Chowdler was started, he passed from one story to another without a halt. Mr. Flaggon was conscious that the anecdotes were being related nottohim butathim. However, he smiled when a smile seemed to be expected, and looked impressed where it was obviously the right thing to look impressed. But, when his host concluded the fifteenth story with the remark, “And I think it’s such a splendid idea that the old traditions are being planted, with the old flag, far away over the water, in Saskatchewan,” he could not help saying:
“Don’t you think it would be better, perhaps, if the Colonies were allowed to create their own traditions and their own ideals? If there is to be development, there must be new forms; and I always hope that the colonies will have something new to teachussome day.”
Mr. Chowdler did not agree, and he said so in words which produced another awkward pause; and Mr. Beadle once more came to the rescue by remarking:
“I suppose that they are very keen about education in Wales?” Which showed that Mr. Beadle had been making a study of the new headmaster’s previous history.
When the marble clock on the mantelpiece pointed to eleven, Mr. Flaggon rose to go. A day with Dr. Gussy, and an evening spent in the company of Mr. Chowdler, had induced an unusual feeling of weariness. He and his host shook hands at parting with every outward appearance of friendliness; but, as he walked home under the dripping trees to the Prætorium, as Dr. Gussy’s house was called, he was conscious that, amongst the many problems that he would have to face at Chiltern, Mr. Chowdler would almost certainly be one of the most difficult.