"You look wonderful to-night," he said.
He leant forward and their hands touched; his little finger intertwined itself round hers. She felt his warm breath upon her face.
"Do I?" she whispered. "It's all for you."
In another moment he would have taken her in his arms and kissed her, and she would have responded naturally. They had reached that moment to which the course of the courtship had tended, that point when a kiss is involuntary, that point that can never come again. But just as his hands stretched out to her the band struck up; he rested his hand on hers and pressed it.
"We shall have to go," he whispered.
"Yes."
"But the next but one."
"No. 16."
But the magic of that one moment had passed; they had left behind them the possibility of spontaneous action. They were no longer part of the natural rhythm of their courtship. All through the next dance he kept saying to himself: "I shall have to kiss her the next time. I shall. I know I shall. I must pull myself together." He felt puzzled, frightened and excited, so that when the time came he was both nervous and self-conscious. The magic had gone, yet each felt that something was expected of them. Roland tried to pull himself together; to remind himself that if he didn't kiss her now she would never forgive him;that there was nothing in it; that he had kissed Dolly a hundred times and thought nothing of it. But it was not the same thing; that was shallow and trivial; this was genuine; real emotion was at stake. He did not know what to do. As they sat out after the dance he tried to make a bet with himself, to say, "I'll count ten and then I'll do it." He stretched out his hand to hers, and it lay in his limp and uninspired.
"April," he whispered, "April."
She turned her head from him. He leant forward, hesitated for a moment, then kissed her awkwardly upon the neck. She did not move. He felt he must do something. He put his arm round her, trying to turn her face to his, but she pulled away from him. He tried to kiss her, and his chin scratched the soft skin of her cheek, his nose struck hers, her mouth half opened, and her teeth jarred against his lips. It was a failure, a dismal failure.
She pushed him away angrily.
"Go away! go away!" she said. "What are you doing? What do you mean by it? I hate you; go away!"
All the excitement of the evening turned into violent hatred; she was half hysterical. She had been worked up to a point, and had been let down. She was not angry with him because he had tried to kiss her, but because he had chosen the wrong moment, because he had failed to move her.
"But, April, I'm sorry, April."
"Oh, go away; leave me alone, leave me alone."
"But, April." He put his hand upon her arm, and she swung round upon him fiercely.
"Didn't I tell you I wanted to be left alone. I don't know how you dared. Do leave me."
She walked quickly past him into the ballroom, and seeing Ralph at the far end of it went up and asked him, to that young gentleman's exhilarated amazement, whether he was free for No. 17, and if he was whether he would like to dance it with her. She wore a bravesmile through the rest of the evening and danced all her five extras.
But when she was home again, had climbed the silent stairs, and turning up the light in her bedroom saw, lying on the floor, the discarded green and yellow dress, she broke down, and flinging herself upon the bed sobbed long and bitterly. She was not angry with Roland, nor her mother, nor even with herself, but with life, with that cruel force that had filled her with such eager boundless expectation, only in the end to fling her down, to trample on her happiness, to mock her disenchantment. Never as long as she lived would she forget the shame, the unspeakable shame, and degradation of that evening.
A POTENTIAL DIPLOMAT
Rolandreturned to school with the uncomfortable feeling that he had not made the most of his holidays. He had failed with April; he had not been on the best of terms with Ralph; and he had found the last week or so—after the Saundersons' dance—a little tedious. He was never sorry to go back to school; on this occasion he was positively glad.
In many ways the Easter term was the best of the three; it was agreeably short; there were the house matches, the steeplechases, the sports and then, at the end of it, spring; those wonderful mornings at the end of March when one woke to see the courts vivid with sunshine, the lindens trembling on the verge of green; when one thought of the summer and cricket and bathing and the long, cool evenings. And as Howard had now left, there was nothing to molest his enjoyment of these good things.
He decided, after careful deliberation, to keep it up with Dolly. There had been moments during the holidays when he had sworn to break with her; it would be quite easy now that Howard had left. And often during an afternoon in April's company the idea of embracing Dolly had been repulsive to him. But he had been piqued by April's behaviour at the dance, and his conduct was not ordered by a carefully-thought-out code of morals. He responded to the atmosphere of the moment; his emotion, while the moment that inspired it lasted, was sincere.
And so every Sunday afternoon he used to bicycle out towards Yeovil and meet Dolly on the edge of a little wood. They would wheel their machines insideand sit together in the shelter of the hedge. They did not talk much; there was not much for them to discuss. But she would take off her hat and lean her head against his shoulder and let him kiss her as much as he wanted. She was not responsive, but then Roland hardly expected it. His small experience of the one-sided romances of school life had led him to believe that love was a thing of male desire and gracious, womanly compliance. He never thought that anyone would want to kiss him. He would look at his reflection in the glass and marvel at the inelegance of his features—an ordinary face with ordinary eyes, ordinary nose, ordinary mouth. Of his hair certainly he was proud; it was a triumph. But he doubted whether Dolly appreciated the care with which he had trained it to lie back from his forehead in one immaculate wave. She had, indeed, asked him to give up brilliantine.
"It's so hard and smarmy," she complained; "I can't run my fingers through it."
The one good point about him was certainly lost on Dolly. He wondered whether April liked it. April and Dolly! It was hard to think of the two together. What would April say if she were to hear about Dolly? It was the theme Ralph was always driving at him like a nail, with heavy, ponderous blows. An interesting point. What would April say? He considered the question, not as a possible criticism of his own conduct, but as the material for an intriguing, dramatic situation. It would be hard to make her see the difference. "I'm a girl and she's a girl and you want to kiss us both." That was how she would look at it, probably—so illogical. One might as well say that water was the same thing and had the same effect as champagne. Ridiculous! But it would be hard to make April see it.
And there was a difference, a big difference; he felt it before a fortnight of the new term had passed. In spite of the kisses he was never moved by Dolly's presence as he was by April's. His blood was calm—calmer, far calmer, than it had been last term. Henever felt now that excitement, that dryness of the throat that used to assail him in morning chapel towards the end of the Litany. Something had passed, and it was not solely April, though, no doubt, she had formed a standard in his mind and had her share in this disenchantment. It was more than that. In a subtle way, although he had hardly exchanged a dozen words with her in his life, he missed Betty. He had enjoyed more than he had realised at the time those moments of meeting and parting, when the four of them had stood together, awkward, embarrassed, waiting for someone to suggest a separation. It had always been Betty who had done it, with a toss of her head: "Come on, Dolly, time to be getting on"; or else: "Now then, Dolly, isn't it time you were taking your Roland away with you?" And what a provocative, infinitely suggestive charm that slow smile of hers had held for him. The thrill of it had borne him triumphantly over the preliminaries of courtship. He missed it now, and often he found himself talking of her to Dolly.
"Did she really like Howard?" he asked her once.
"Yes, I think so; in fact, I know she did. Though I couldn't see what she saw in him myself. I suppose there was something about him. She misses him quite a lot, so she says."
This statement Roland considered an excellent cue for an exchange of gallantries.
"But wouldn't you miss me if I went?"
Dolly, however, was interested in her own subject.
"Yes," she went on, "she seems really worried. Only the other day she said to me: 'Dolly, I can't get on without that boy. There's nothing to look forward to of a Sunday now, and I get so tired of my work.' And when I said to her: 'But, my dear Betty, there's hundreds more fish in the sea. What about young Rogers at the post office?' she answers: 'Oh, him! my boy's spoilt me for all that. I can't bear the sight of young Rogers any more.' Funny, isn't it?"
Roland agreed with her. To him it was amazing.
"Well," Dolly went on, "I saw quite clearly that there was nothing for it but that she must get hold of another young chap like your friend. And I asked her if there was anyone else up at the school she fancied, and she said, yes, there was; a boy she's seen you talking to once or twice; a young, fair-haired fellow with a blue and yellow hat ribbon. That's the best I can do. Is that any help to you? Would you know him?"
A blue and yellow hat ribbon limited the selection to members of the School XI., and there was only one old colour who answered to that description—Brewster in Carus Evans'.
"Oh, yes, I know him."
"Well, now, don't you think you could arrange it? Do, for my sake."
"But I don't know him well enough. I don't see how I could."
"Oh, yes, you do. Haven't I seen you talking together, and he would be only too pleased. I am sure he would. Betty's such a nice girl. Now, do try."
Roland promised that he would do his best, though it was not a job he particularly fancied. Brewster was the youngest member of the XI. He had been playing on lower side games all the season without attracting any attention and had then surprised everyone by making a century in an important house match. He was immediately transplanted to the first, and though he played in only two matches he was considered to have earned his colours. He was not, however, in any sense of the word a blood. He was hardly known by men of Roland's standing in other houses. He was low in form and not particularly brilliant at football. Roland knew next to nothing about him. Still it was a fascinating situation—a girl like Betty, who must be a good three years older than Dolly, getting keen on such a kid. Was she in love, he wondered. He had never met anyone who had enjoyed the privilege of having a girl in love with him. For towards the end he had believedvery little that Howard had told him. It was an intriguing affair. And so he set himself to his task.
The difficulty, of course, was to find the auspicious moment. He hardly ever saw Brewster except when there were a lot of other people about, and he didn't want to ask him across to his study. People would talk; and, besides, it would not do to spring this business on him suddenly. He would have to lead up to it carefully. For a whole week he sought, unsuccessfully, for an opportunity, and on the Sunday he had to confess to Dolly that he was no nearer the attainment of her friend's desires.
"It's not as easy as you seem to think it is. We are not in the same house, we are not in the same form, and we don't play footer on the same ground. In fact, except that we happen to be in the same school——"
"Now! now! now! Haven't I seen you talking to him alone twice before I even mentioned him to you? And if you could be alone with him then, when you had no particular reason to, surely you can manage to be now, when you have."
"But, my dear Dolly——"
"There've not got to be any buts. Either you bring along your friend or it's all over between us."
It was not a very serious threat, and at any other stage of their relationship Roland, considering the bother that the affair involved, might have been glad enough to accept it as an excuse for his dismissal. But he had determined to bring this thing off. He thought of Betty, large, black-haired, bright-eyed, highly coloured, her full lips moistened by the red tongue that slipped continually between them, and Brewster, fair-haired and slim and shy. It would be amusing to see what they would make of one another. He would carry the business through, and as a reward for this determination luck, two days later, came his way. He drew Brewster in the second round of the Open Fives.
On the first wet day they played it off, and as Roland was a poor performer and Brewster a tolerably efficient one the game ended in under half-an-hour. They had,therefore, the whole afternoon before them, and Roland suggested that as soon as they had changed they should have tea together in his study.
For Roland it was an exciting afternoon; he was playing, for the first time in his life, the part of a diplomat. He had read a good many novels in which the motive was introduced, but there it had been a very different matter. The stage had been set skilfully; each knew the other's thoughts without being sure of his intention; there was a rapier duel of thrust and parry. But here the stage was set for nothing in particular. Brewster was unaware of dramatic tension; his main idea was to eat as much as possible.
With infinite care Roland led the conversation to a discussion of the mentality of women. He enlarged on a favourite theme of his—the fact that girls often fell in love with really ugly men. "I can't understand it," he said. "Girls are such delicate, refined creatures. They want the right coloured curtains in their bedrooms and the right coloured cushion for their sofas; they spend hours discussing the right shade of ribbon for their hair, and then they go and fall in love with a ridiculous-looking man. Look at Morgan, now. He's plain and he's bald and he's got an absurd, stubby moustache, and yet his wife is frightfully pretty, and she seems really keen on him. I don't understand it."
Brewster agreed that it was curious, and helped himself to another cake.
"I suppose," said Roland, "that a fellow like you knows a good deal about girls?"
Brewster shook his head. The subject presented few attractions to him.
"No," he said, "I don't really know anything at all about them. I haven't got a sister."
"But you don't learn about girls from your sister."
"Perhaps not. But if you haven't got a sister you don't run much chance of seeing anyone else's. We don't know any decent ones. A few of my friends have sisters, but they seem pretty fair asses. I keep out of their way."
"That's rather funny, you know, because you're the sort of fellow that girls run after."
As Roland had been discussing for some time the ugliness of the type of man that appealed most to girls, this was hardly a compliment. Brewster did not notice it, however. Indeed, he evinced no great interest in the conversation. He was enjoying his tea.
"Oh, I don't think I am," he said. "At any rate none of them have run after me, so far."
"That's all you know," said Roland, and his voice assumed a tone that made Brewster look up quickly.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, I know someone who is doing their best to."
Brewster flushed; the hand that was carrying a cream cake to his mouth paused in mid air.
"A girl! Who?"
"That's asking."
Roland had at last succeeded in arousing Brewster's curiosity, and he was wise enough to refrain from satisfying it at once. If he were to tell him that a girl down town had wanted to go for a walk with him, Brewster would have laughed and probably thought no more about it. He would have to fan his interest till Brewster's imagination had had time to play upon the idea.
"She's very pretty," Roland said, "and she asked me who you were. She was awfully keen to meet you, but I told her that it was no good and that you wouldn't care for that sort of thing. She was very disappointed."
"Yes, but who is she?"
"I'm not going to tell you that. Why should I give her away?"
"Oh, but do tell me."
Roland was firm.
"No; I'm jolly well not going to. It's her secret. You don't want to meet her, do you?"
"No," Brewster grudgingly admitted; "but I'd like to know."
"I daresay you would, but I'm not going to give away a confidence. Suppose you told me that youwere keen on a girl and that you'd heard she wouldn't have anything to do with anyone, you wouldn't like me to go and tell her who you were, would you?"
"No."
"Of course you wouldn't. That's the sort of thing one keeps to oneself."
"Yes; but as I shall never see her——"
Roland adopted in reply the stern tone of admonition, "Of course not; but if I told you, you'd take jolly good care that you did see her, and then you'd tell someone else. You'd point her out and say, 'That girl wanted me to come out for a walk with her.' You know you would, and of course the other fellow would promise not to tell anyone and of course he would. It would be round the whole place in a week, and think how the poor girl would feel being laughed at by everyone because a fellow four years younger than herself wouldn't have anything to do with her."
"What! Four years older than me."
"About that."
"And she's pretty, you say?"
"Jolly."
There was a pause.
"You know, Whately," he began, "I'd rather ..." then broke off. "Oh, look here, do tell me."
Roland shook his head.
"I don't give away secrets."
"But why did you tell me anything about it at all?"
"I don't know; it just cropped up, didn't it? I thought it might amuse you."
"Well, I think it's rotten of you. I shan't be able to think of anything else until I know."
Which was, of course, exactly what Roland wanted. He knew how Brewster's imagination would play with the idea. Betty would become for him strange, wistful, passionate. Four years older than himself he would picture her as the Lilith of old, the eternal temptress. In herself she was nothing. If he had met her in the streets two days earlier he would have hardly noticed her. "A pleasant, country girl," he would have said,and let her pass out of his thoughts. But now the imagination that colours all things would make her irresistible, and when he met her she would be identified with his dream.
Next morning Brewster ran across to him during break.
"I say, Whately, do tell me who she is."
"No; I told you I wasn't going to."
"Well, then. Oh, look here! Is it Dorothy Jones?"
Dorothy Jones was the daughter of the owner of a cycle shop and was much admired in the school.
"Would you like it to be?" Roland asked.
"I don't know. Perhaps. But is it, though?"
"Perhaps."
"It is Dorothy Jones, isn't it? It is her?"
"If you know, why do you ask me?"
"Oh, don't be a fool! Is it Dorothy Jones?"
"Perhaps."
"Well, if it isn't her, is it Mary Gardiner?"
"It is Mary Gardiner," Roland mocked. "It is she, isn't it?"
"Oh, you're awful," said Brewster, and walked away.
But that evening he came over to the School house studies and, just before Hall, a small boy ran across to the reading-room to tell Roland that Brewster was in the cloisters and would like to speak to him.
"Well," said Roland, "and what is it?"
"It's about the girl."
Roland affected a weary impatience.
"Oh, Lord, but I thought we'd finished with all that. I told you that I wasn't going to give her away."
"Yes, I know; but ... ah, well, look here, I must know who the girl is. No, don't interrupt. Will you tell me if I promise to come out with her once?"
Roland thought for a moment. He had his man now, but it would not do to hurry things. He must play for safety a little longer.
"Oh, yes, I know that game," he said. "I shall tell you her name and then you'll wish you hadn't promised and you'll get frightened, and when the time comesyou will have sprained an ankle in a house match and won't be able to come for a walk. That won't do at all."
"But I swear I wouldn't do that," Brewster protested. "Really, I wouldn't."
"Yes, and I promised that I wasn't going to tell."
"But that's so silly. Suppose now that I was really keen on her. For all you know, or I, for that matter, I may have seen her walking about the town and thought her jolly pretty without knowing who she was."
"And I'm damned certain you haven't. You told me that you didn't take any interest in girls."
"No, but really, honest, man, I may have seen her. Only this morning as I was going down to Fort's after breakfast I saw an absolutely ripping girl, and I believe it was me she smiled at. It's very likely her."
"Yes, yes, I dare say, but——"
"Oh, come on, do tell me, and I promise you I'll come and see her; honest, I will."
But at that moment the roll-bell issued its cracked summons.
"If you don't run like sin you'll be late for roll-call, and that'll finish everything," Roland said, and Brewster turned and sprinted across the courts.
Roland walked back to his study in a mood of deep self-satisfaction. He was carrying an extremely difficult job to a triumphant close. It did not occur to him that the rôle he filled was not a particularly noble one and that an unpleasantly worded label could be discovered for it. He was living in the days of unreflecting action. He did, or refrained from doing, the things he wanted to do, without a minute analysis of motive, but in accordance with a definite code of rules. He lived his life as he played cricket. There were rewards and there were penalties. If you hit across a straight long hop you ran a chance of being leg before, and if the ball hit your pad you went straight back to the pavilion. You played to win, but you played the game, provided that you played it according to the rules. It did not matter to Roland what the game was. And the affairof Betty and Brewster was a game that he was winning fairly and squarely.
Next morning he achieved victory. He met Brewster during break and presented his ultimatum.
"I won't tell you her name," he said. "I promised not to. It wouldn't be the game. But I tell you what I will do, though. If you'll promise to come out for a walk with me on Sunday I'll arrange for her to meet us somewhere, and then you can see what you think of each other. Now, what do you say to that?"
Brewster's curiosity was so roused that he accepted eagerly, and next Sunday they set out together towards Cold Harbour.
About a mile and a half from the school a sunken lane ran down the side of a steep hill towards the railway. The lane could be approached from two sides, and from the shelter of a thick hedge it was possible to observe the whole country-side without being seen. It was here that they had arranged their meeting.
They found the two girls waiting when they arrived. Betty looked very smart in a dark blue coat and skirt and a small hat that fitted tightly over her head. She smiled at Roland, and the sight, after months, of her fresh-coloured face, with its bright eyes and wide, moist mouth, sent a sudden thrill through him—half fear, half excitement.
"So you've managed to arrange it," said Dolly. "How clever of you."
"Very nice of him to come," said Betty, her eyes fixed on Brewster, who stood awkwardly, his hands in his pockets, kicking one heel against the other.
For a few minutes they talked together, stupid, inconsequent badinage, punctuated by giggles, till Betty, as usual, reminded them that they would only have an hour together.
"About time we paired off, isn't it?"
"I suppose so," said Roland. "Come along, Dolly," and they began to walk down the lane. At the corner they turned and saw the other two standingtogether—Betty, taller, confident and all-powerful; Brewster, looking up at her, scared and timid, his hands clasped behind him.
"He looks a bit shy, doesn't he?" said Dolly.
Roland laughed.
"He won't be for long, I expect."
"Rather not. He'll soon get used to her. Betty doesn't let her boys stop shy with her for long. She makes them do as she wants them."
And when they returned an hour later they saw the two sitting side by side chatting happily. But as soon as they reached them Brewster became silent and shy, and looked neither of them in the face.
"Had a good time?" asked Dolly.
"Ask him," she answered.
And they laughed, all except Brewster, and made arrangements to meet again, only a little earlier the next week.
"Well," said Roland, as soon as they were out of earshot, "and how did you enjoy yourself?"
Brewster admitted that it had been pretty good.
"Only pretty good?"
"Well, I don't know," he said, "it was all right. Yes, it was ripping, really; but it was so different from what I had expected."
"How do you mean?"
"Oh, well, you know. I felt so awkward; she started everything. I didn't have any say in it at all. I had thought it was up to me to do all that."
"Betty's not that sort."
"No, but it's a funny business."
"You are coming out next week, though?"
"Rather!"
And next week Dolly, as soon as she was alone with Roland, began to ask him questions about Brewster: "What did he say to you? What did he think of her? Was she nice to him? You must tell me all about it."
"Oh, I think he enjoyed himself all right. She startled him a bit."
"Did she? What did he say? Do tell me."
She asked him question after question, and he had to repeat to her every word he could remember of Brewster's conversation. Did he still feel shy? Did he think Betty beautiful? Was he at all in love with her? And then Roland began to ask what Betty had thought of Brewster. Had she preferred him to Howard? She wasn't disappointed in him? Did she like him better than the other boys? They talked eagerly.
"Wouldn't it be fun to go back and have a look at them?" said Dolly. "I'd give anything to see them together."
Their eyes met, and suddenly, with a fervour they had never reached before, they kissed.
APRIL'S LOOKING-GLASS
ForApril the term which brought Roland so much excitement was slow in passing. In spite of the disastrous evening at the ball, Roland's return to school left a void in her life. When she woke in the morning and stretched herself in bed before getting up she would ask herself what good thing she could expect that day to bring her. When she felt happy she would demand the reason of herself. "Over what are you happy?" she would ask herself. "In five minutes' time you will get up. You will put on your dressing-gown and hurry down the corridor to the bathroom. You will dress hurriedly, but come down all the same a little late for breakfast. You will find that your father has eaten, as is his wont, more than his share of toast, which will mean that you, being the last down, will have to go without it. You will rush down to school saying over to yourself the dates of your history lesson. You will hang your hat and coat on the fourth row of pegs and on the seventh peg from the right. From nine o'clock to ten you will be heard your history lesson. From ten o'clock till eleven you will take down notes on chemistry. From eleven to a quarter past there will be an interval, during which you will try to find a friend to help you with the Latin translation, of which you prepared only the first thirty lines last night. From a quarter-past eleven till a quarter-past twelve you will be heard that lesson. At a quarter-past twelve you will attend a lecture on English literature, which will last till one o'clock. You will then have lunch, and as to-day is Tuesday you know that your lunch will consist of boiled mutton and capersauce, followed by apple dumpling. In the afternoon you will have gymnastics and a music lesson, after which there will be an hour of Mademoiselle's French conversation class. You will then come home. You will hurry your tea in the hope of being able to finish your preparation before your father comes back from the office at twenty minutes to seven, because when once he is back your mother will begin to talk, and when she begins to talk work becomes impossible. You will then dine with your parents at half-past seven. You will sit perfectly quiet at the table and not say a word, while your mother talks and talks and father listens and occasionally says, 'Yes, mother,' or 'No, mother.' After dinner you will read a book in the drawing-room till your mother reminds you that it is nine o'clock and time that you were in bed. You have, in fact, before you a day similar in every detail to yesterday, and similar in every detail to to-morrow. If you think anything different is going to happen to you then you are a little fool." And April would have to confess that this self-catechism was true. "Nothing happens," she would say. "One day is like another, and I am a little fool to wake up in the morning excited about nothing at all."
But all the same she was excited and she did feel, in spite of reason, that something was bound to happen soon. "Things cannot go on like this for ever," she told herself. And, looking into the future, she came gradually to look upon the day of Roland's return from school as the event which would alter, in a way she could not discern, the whole tenor of her life. It was not in these words that the idea was presented to her. "It may be different during the holidays when Roland is here." That was her first thought, from which the words "when Roland is here" detached themselves, starting another train of thought, that "Life when Roland is here is always different"; and she began to look forward to the holidays, counting the days till his return. "Things will be different then."
It was not love, it was not friendship; it was simplythe belief that Roland's presence would be a key to that world other than this, of which shadowy intimations haunted her continually. Roland became the focus for her disquiet, her longing, her vague appreciation of the eternal essence made manifest for her in the passing phenomena of life.
"When Roland comes back ..." And though she marked on the calendar that hung in her bedroom April 2, the last day of her own term, with a big red cross, it was April 5 that she regarded as the real beginning of her holidays. And when she came down to breakfast and her father said to her, "Only seven more days now, April," she would answer gaily, "Yes, only a week. Isn't it lovely?" But to herself she would add, "Ten days, only ten days more!"
And so she missed altogether the usual last day excitement. She did not wake on that first morning happy with the delicious thought that she could lie in bed for an extra ten minutes if she liked. She had not yet begun her holidays.
But two days later she was in a fever of expectation. In twenty-four hours' time Roland would be home. How slowly the day passed. In the evening she said she was tired and went to bed before dinner, so that the next day might come quickly for her. But when she got to bed she found that she could not sleep, and though she repeated the word "abracadabra" many hundred times and counted innumerable sheep passing through innumerable gates, she lay awake till after midnight, hearing hour after hour strike. And when at last sleep came to her it was light and fitful and she woke often.
Next day she did not know what to do with herself. She tried to read and could not. She tried to sew and could not. She ran up and down stairs on trifling errands in order to pass the time. In vain she tried to calm herself. "What are you getting so excited about? What do you think is going to happen? What can happen? The most that can happen is that he will come round with his father in the evening, andyou know well enough by now what that will mean. Your mother will talk and his father will say, 'Yes, Mrs Curtis,' and 'Really, Mrs Curtis,' and you and Roland will hardly exchange a word with one another. You are absurdly excited over nothing."
But logic was of no avail, and all the afternoon she fidgeted with impatience. By tea-time she was in a state of repressed hysteria. She sat in the window-seat looking down the road in the direction from which he would have to come. "I wonder if he will come without his father. It would be so dear of him if he would, but I don't suppose he will. No, of course he won't. It's silly of me to think of it. He'll have to wait for his father; he always does. That means he won't be here at the earliest till after six. And it's only ten minutes to five now."
And to make things worse, seldom had she found her mother more annoying.
"Now, why don't you go for a walk, April, dear?" she said. "It's such a lovely evening and you've been indoors nearly all day. It isn't good, and I was saying to your father only the other day, 'Father, dear, I'm sure April isn't up to the mark. She looks so pale nowadays.'"
"I'm all right, mother."
"No, but are you, dear? You're looking really pale. I'm sure I ought to ask Dr Dunkin to come and see you."
"But I'm all right—really, I'm all right, mother. I know when anything is wrong with me."
"But you don't, April, dear. That's just the point. Don't you remember that time when you insisted on going to the tennis party and assured us that you were quite well, and when you came back we found you had a temperature of 101° and that you were sickening for measles? I was saying to Dr Dunkin only this morning: 'Dr Dunkin, I'm really not satisfied about our little April. I think I shall have to ask you to give her a tonic'; and he said to me: 'Yes, that's right, Mrs Curtis; you bring me along to her and I'll set her straight.'"
April put her hands up to her head and tried not to listen, but her mother's voice flowed on:
"And now, dear, do go out for a walk—just a little one."
"But, mother, dear, I don't want to, really, and I'm feeling so tired."
"There, what did I say? You're feeling tired and you've done nothing all day. There must be something wrong with you. I shall certainly ask Dr Dunkin to come and see you to-morrow."
"Oh, yes, yes, yes, mother. I'll do anything you like to-morrow. If you'll only leave me alone to-night."
But Mrs Curtis went on talking, and April grew more and more exasperated, and the minutes went past and Roland did not come. Six struck and half-past six, and a few minutes later she heard her father's latch-key in the door. And then the whole question of her health was dragged out again.
"I was saying to you only yesterday, father, that our little April wasn't as well as she ought to be. She has overworked, I think. Last night she went to bed early and to-day she looks quite pale, and she says that she feels tired although she hasn't really done anything. I must send for Dr Dunkin to-morrow."
It seemed to April that the voice would never stop. It beat and beat upon her brain, like the ticking of the watch that reminded her of the flying moments. "He won't come now," she said; "he won't come now." Seven o'clock had struck, the lamps were lit, evening had descended upon the street. He had never come as late as this before. But she still sat at the window, gazing down the street towards the figures, that became distinct for a moment in the lamplight. "He will not come now," she said, and suddenly she felt limp, tired, incapable of resistance. She put her head upon her knees and began to sob.
In a moment her mother's arms were round her. "But, darling, what is it, April, dear?"
She could not speak. She shook her head, tried desperately to make a sign that she was all right, thatshe would rather be left alone; but it was no use. She felt too bitterly the need for human sympathy. She turned, flung her arms about her mother's neck, and began to sob and sob.
"Oh, mother, mother," she cried. "I'm so miserable. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."
Next morning Dr Dunkin felt her pulse, prescribed a tonic and told her not to stay too much indoors.
"Now, you'll be all right, dear," her mother said. "Dr Dunkin's medicines are splendid."
April smiled quietly. "Yes, I expect that was what was wanted. I think I worked a little too hard last term."
"I'm sure you did, my dear. I shall write to Mrs Clarke about it. I can't have my little girl getting run down."
And that afternoon April met Roland in the High Street. It was the first time that she had seen him alone since the evening of the dance, and she found him awkward and embarrassed. They said a few things of no importance—about the holidays, the weather and their acquaintances. Then April said that she must be going home, and Roland made no effort to detain her—did not even make any suggestion about coming round to see her.
"So that is what you have been looking forward to for over a month," she said to herself, as he passed out of sight behind an angle of the road. "This is the date you wanted to mark upon your calendar with a red cross. Little fool. What did you think you were doing? And what has it turned out to be in the end? Five minutes' discussion of indifferent things. A fine event to make such a fuss about; and what else did you expect?"
She was not bitter. It was one of those mild days that in early spring surprise us with a promise of summer, on which the heart is stirred with the crowded glory of life and the sense of widening horizons.The long stretch of roofs and chimney stacks became beautiful in the subdued sunlight. It was an hour that in the strong might have quickened the hunger for adventure, but that to April brought a mood of chastened, quiet resignation. She appreciated, as she had not done before, the tether by which her scope was measured. For the last month she had made Roland's return a focus for the ambitions and desires and yearnings towards an intenser way of living, for which of herself she had been unable to find expression. This, in a confused manner, she understood. "I can do nothing by myself. I have to live in other people. And what I am now I shall be always. All my life I shall be dependent on someone else, or on some interest that is outside myself. And whether I am happy or unhappy depends upon some other person. That is my nature, and I cannot go beyond my nature." When she reached home she sat for a long time in the window-seat, her hands folded in her lap. "This will be my whole life," she said. "I am not of those who may go out in search of happiness." And she thought that if romance did not come to her, she would remain all her life sitting at a window. "Of myself I can do nothing."
A SORRY BUSINESS
Aprildid not see very much of Roland during the holidays, and was not, on the whole, sorry. Now that the hysterical excitement over his return had passed, she judged it better to let their friendship lapse. She did not want any repetition of that disastrous evening, and thought that it would be easier to resume their friendship on its old basis after the long interval of the summer term. Roland was still a little piqued by what he considered her absurd behaviour, and had resolved to let the first step come from her.
This estrangement was a disappointment to his people.
"Have you noticed, my dear, that Roland's hardly been round to the Curtises' at all these holidays?" Mr Whately said to his wife one evening. "I hope there has not been a row or anything. I rather wish you'd try and find out."
And so next day Mrs Whately made a guarded remark to her son about April's appearance: "What a big girl she's getting. And she's prettier every day. If you're not careful you'll have all the boys in the place running after her and cutting you out."
Roland answered in an off-hand manner, "They can for all I care, mother."
"Oh, but, Roland, you shouldn't say that; I thought you were getting on so well together last holidays. We were even saying——"
But Roland never allowed himself to be forced into a confidence.
"Oh, please, mother, don't. There was nothing in it; really, there wasn't."
"You haven't had a row, have you, Roland?"
"Of course not, mother. What should we have a row about?"
"I don't know, dear. I only thought——"
"Well, you needn't worry about us, mother; we're all right."
Roland was by no means pleased at what seemed to him a distinct case of interference. It arrived, too, at a most inopportune moment, for he had been just then wondering whether he ought not to forget about his high-minded resolves and try to make it up with April. His mother's inquiries, however, decided him. He was not going to have others arranging that sort of thing for him. "And for all I know," he said to himself, "Mrs Curtis may be at the back of this. I shan't go round there again these holidays." And this was the more unfortunate, because if the intimacy between Roland and April had been resumed, it is more than likely that Roland, at the beginning of the summer term, would have decided to give up Dolly altogether. Both he and Brewster were a little tired of it; the first interest had passed, and they had actually discussed the wisdom of dropping the whole business.
"After all," said Brewster, "it can't go on for ever. It'll have to stop some time, and next term we shall both be fairly high in the school, house prefects and all that, and we shall have to be pretty careful what we do."
Roland was inclined to agree with him, but his curiosity was still awake.
"It's not so easy to break a thing like this. Let's wait till the end of the term. The summer holidays are a long time, and by the time we come back they'll very likely have picked up someone else."
"All right," said Brewster, "I don't mind. And it does add an interest to things."
And so the affair went on smoothly and comfortably, a pleasant interlude among the many good gifts of a summer term—cricket and swimming and the long, lazy evenings. Nothing, indeed, occurred to ruffle thecomplete happiness of Roland's life, till one Monday morning during break Brewster came running across to the School house studies with the disastrous news that his house master had found out all about it. It had happened thus:
On the previous Saturday Roland had sent up a note in break altering the time of an appointment. It was the morning of a school match and Brewster received the note on his way down to the field. He was a little late, and as soon as he had read the note he shoved it into his pocket and thought no more about it. During the afternoon he slipped, trying to bring off a one-handed catch in the slips, and tore the knee of his trousers. The game ended late and he had only just time to change and take his trousers round to the matron to be mended before lock-up. In the right-hand pocket the matron discovered Roland's note, and, judging its contents singular, placed it before Mr Carus Evans.
As Roland walked back with Brewster from the tuck-shop a small boy ran up to tell him that Mr Carus Evans would like to see him directly after lunch.
Roland was quite calm as he walked up the hill three hours later. One is only frightened when one is uncertain of one's fate. When a big row is on, in which one may possibly be implicated, one endures agonies, wondering whether or not one will be found out. But when it is settled, when one is found out, what is there to do? One must let things take their course; nothing can alter it. There is no need for fret or fever. Roland was able to consider his position with detached interest.
He had been a fool to send that note. Notes always got lost or dropped and the wrong people picked them up. How many fellows had not got themselves bunked that way, notes and confirmation? They were the two great menaces, the two hidden rocks. Probably confirmation was the more dangerous. On the whole, more fellows had got the sack through confirmation, but notes were not much better. What an ass he had been. He would never send a note again, never; heswore it to himself, and then reflected a little dismally that he might very likely never have the opportunity.
Still, that was rather a gloomy view to take. And he stood more chance with Carus Evans than he would have done with any other master. Carus Evans had always hated him, and because he hated him would be desperately anxious to treat him fairly. As a result he would be sure to underpunish him. It is always safer to have a big row with a master who dislikes you than with one who is your friend. And from this reflection Roland drew what comfort he might.
Mr Carus Evans sat writing at his desk when Roland came in. He looked up and then went on with his letter. It was an attempt to make Roland feel uncomfortable and to place him at the start at a disadvantage. It was a characteristic action, for Carus Evans was a weak man. His house was probably the slackest in the school. It had no one in the XV., Brewster was its sole representative in the XI. and it did not possess one school prefect. This should not have been, for Carus Evans was a bachelor and all his energies were available. He had no second interest to attract him, but he was weak when he should have been strong; he chose the wrong prefects and placed too much confidence in them. He was not a natural leader.
For a good two minutes he went on writing, then put down his pen.
"Ah, yes, yes, Whately. Sit down, will you? Now then, I've been talking to one of the boys in my house and it seems that you and he have been going out together and meeting some girls in the town. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir."
"And the suggestion came from you, I gather?"
"Yes, sir."
"This is a very serious thing, Whately. I suppose you realise that?"
"I suppose so, sir."
"Of course it is, and especially so for a boy in your position. Now, I don't know what attitude theheadmaster will adopt, but of this I am quite certain. A great deal will depend on whether you tell me the truth. I shall know if you tell me a lie. You've got to tell me the whole story. Now, how did this thing start?"
"On the first night of the Christmas term, sir."
"How?"
"I met them at a dance in the pageant grounds."
"The pageant grounds are out of bounds. You ought to know that."
"It was the first night, sir."
"Don't quibble with me. They're out of bounds. Well, what happened next?"
"I danced with her, sir."
"Were you alone?"
"No, sir."
"Who was with you?"
"I can't tell you, sir."
"If you don't tell me——"
"He's left now, sir. It wouldn't be fair."
They looked each other in the face and in that moment Carus Evans realised that, in spite of their positions, Roland was the stronger.
"Oh, well, never mind that; we can leave it till later on. And I suppose you made an appointment?"
"No, sir."
"What?"
"You asked me if I made an appointment, sir. I answered I didn't."
Roland was not going to give him the least assistance. Indeed, in the joy of being able to play once again the old game of baiting masters, that had delighted him so much when he had been in the middle school and that he had to abandon so reluctantly when he attained the dignity of the Fifths and Sixths, he had almost forgotten that he was in a singularly difficult situation. He would make "old Carus" ask him a question for every answer that he gave. And he saw that for the moment Carus had lost his length.
"Well, then, let me see. Yes, well—er—well, where did you meet her next?"
"In a lane beyond Cold Harbour, sir."
"Did you go there alone?"
"No, sir."
"You were with this other fellow?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what did you do?"
"Do, sir?"
"Yes, do. Didn't you hear me?"
"Yes, sir, but, Do? I don't quite understand you. What exactly do you mean by the word 'do'?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean, Whately. You flirted, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. I suppose that's what I did do. I flirted."
"I mean you held her hand?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you kissed her?"
"Yes, sir."
"Disgusting! Simply disgusting! Is this place a heathen brothel or a Christian school?" Carus' face was red, and he drove his fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. "You go out on a Sunday afternoon and kiss a shop-girl. What a hobby for a boy in the XV. and Sixth!" And he began to stamp backwards and forwards up and down the room.
This fine indignation did not, however, impress Roland in the least. Carus appeared to him to be less disgusted than interested—pruriently interested—and that he was angry with himself rather than with Roland, because he knew instinctively that he was not feeling as a master should feel when confronted with such a scandal. It was a forced emotion that was inspiring the fierce flow of words.
"Do you know what this sort of thing leads to?" he was saying. "But, of course, you do. I could trust you to know anything like that. Your whole life may be ruined by it."
"But I didn't do anything wrong."
"Perhaps you didn't, not this time, though I've only your word for it; but you would have, sooner orlater, under different conditions. There's only one end to that sort of thing. And even if you were all right yourself, how did you know that Brewster was going to be? That's the beastly part of it. That's what sickens me with you. Your own life is your own to do what you like with, but you've no right to contaminate others. You encourage this young fellow to go about with a girl four years older than himself, about whom you know nothing. How could you tell what might be happening to him? He may not have your self-control. He'd never have started this game but for you, and now that he's once begun he may be unable to break himself of it. You may have ruined his whole life, mayn't you?"
Roland considered the question.
"I suppose so, but I didn't look at it that way."
"Of course, you didn't. But it's the results that count. That's what you've got to keep in mind; actions are judged by their results. And now, what do you imagine is going to happen to you? I suppose you know that if I go across and report you to the headmaster that it'll mean the next train back to London?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if I did, you'd have no cause for complaint. It would be what you'd deserved, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
There was a pause. They looked at each other. Carus Evans hoped that he had frightened Roland, but he had not. Roland knew that Carus did not intend to get him expelled. He would not have talked like that if he had. He was trying to make Roland feel that he was conferring a favour on him in allowing him to stop on.
"There's no reason why I should feel kindly disposed towards you," Carus said. "We've never got on well together. You've worked badly in my form. I've never regarded you as a credit to the school. When you were a small boy you were rowdy and bumptious, and now that you have reached a position of authorityyou have become superior and conceited. There's no reason why I, personally, should wish to see you remain a member of the school. As regards my own house, I cannot yet judge what harm you may have done me. You've started the poison here. Brewster will have told his friends. One bad apple will corrupt a cask. I don't know what trouble you may have laid up for me."
"No, sir."
"But all the same, I know what it means to expel a boy. He's a marked man for life. I'm going to give you another chance."
"Thank you, sir."
"But you've got to make this thing good first. You've got to go to the headmaster yourself and tell him all about it—now, at once. Do you see?"
"Yes, sir."
It was going to be an awkward business, and Roland made no attempt to conceal it from himself. It was just on the half-hour as he walked across the courts. Afternoon school was beginning. Groups had collected round the classrooms, waiting for the master to let them in. Johnson waved to him from a study window and told him to hurry up and help them with the con.
"Don't wait for me," Roland called back. "I've got one or two things to do. I shall be a little late."
"Slacker," Johnson laughed.
It was funny to see the machine revolving so smoothly, with himself, to all outward appearance, a complacently efficient cog in it. He supposed that a criminal must feel like this when he watched people hurry past him in the streets; all of them so intent upon their own affairs and himself seemingly one with them, but actually so much apart.
He knocked at the headmaster's door.
"Come in."
The headmaster was surprised to see Roland at such an hour.
"Yes, Whately?" he said, and then appeared to remember something, and began to fumble among somepapers on his desk. "One moment, Whately; I knew there was something I wanted to speak to you about. Ah, yes, here it is. Your essay on Milton. Will you just come over here a minute? I wanted to have a few words with you about it. Sit down, won't you? Now, let me see, where is it? Ah, yes, here it is: now you say, 'Milton was a Puritan in spite of himself. Satan is the hero of the poem.' Now I want to be quite certain what you mean by that. I'm not going to say that you are wrong. But I want you to be quite certain in your own mind as to what you mean yourself."
And Roland began to explain how Milton had let himself be carried away by his theme, that his nature was so impregnated by the sense of defeat that defeat seemed to him a nobler thing than victory. Satan had become the focus for his emotions on the overthrow of the Commonwealth.
"Yes, yes, I see that, but surely, Whately, the Commonwealth was the Puritan party. If Milton was so distressed by the return of the Royalists, how do you square this view with your statement, 'Milton was a Puritan in spite of himself'? Surely if his puritanism was only imposed, he would have welcomed the return of the drama and a more highly coloured life."
Roland made a gallant effort to explain, but all the time he kept saying to himself, "I came here for a confessional, and yet here I am sitting down in the Chief's best arm-chair, enjoying a friendly chat. I must stop it somehow." But it was excessively difficult. He began to lose the thread of his argument and contradicted himself; and the Chief was so patient, listening to him so attentively, waiting till he had finished.
"But, my dear Whately," the Chief said, "you've just said thatComusis a proof of his love of colour and display, and yet you say in the same breath...."
Would it never cease? And how on earth was he at the end going to introduce the subject of his miserable amours? He had never anticipated anything like this. But at last it was finished.
"You see what you've done, Whately? You'vepicked up a phrase somewhere or other about the paganism of Milton and the nobility of Satan and you have not taken the trouble to think it out. You've just accepted it. I don't say that your statement could not be justified. But it's you who should be able to justify it, not I. You should never make any statement in an essay that you can't substantiate with facts. It's a good essay, though, quite good." And he returned to his papers. He had forgotten altogether that Roland had come unasked to see him.
It was one of the worst moments of Roland's life. He stood silent in the middle of the room while the Chief continued his letter, thinking the interview was at an end.
"Sir," he said at last.
The headmaster looked up quickly and said a little impatiently, for he was a busy man and resented interruption, "Well, Whately? Yes; what is it?"
"I came to see you, sir."
"Oh, yes, of course you did. I forgot. Well, what is it?"
"Sir, I've come to tell you that Mr Carus Evans told me to come and report myself to you and say that—well, sir—that I've been going out for walks with a girl in the town."
"What!"
"Yes, sir, a girl in the town, and that I'd asked a boy in his house to come with me, sir."
The Chief rose from his chair and walked across to the mantelpiece. There was a long pause.
"But I don't quite understand, Whately. You've been going out with some girl in the town?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you've encouraged some boy in Mr Carus Evans' house to accompany you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And he, I suppose, has been going for walks with a girl as well?"
"Yes, sir."
There was another long pause, during which Rolandrealised that he had chosen the worst possible moment for his confession. Whatever decision the Chief might arrive at would be influenced, not only by his inevitable disappointment at the failure of a boy in whom he had trusted, but by its violent contrast with the friendly discussion over the essay and the natural annoyance of a busy man who has been interrupted in an important piece of work to discuss an unpleasant situation that has arisen unexpectedly. When the Chief at last began to speak there was an impatience in his voice that would have been absent if Roland had tackled him after dinner.
"I don't know," he said. "I am tempted sometimes to give up faith in you fellows altogether. I never know where I am with any of you. I feel as though I were sitting upon a volcano. Everything seems quiet and satisfactory and then suddenly the volcano breaks out and I find that the boys in whom I have placed, or am thinking of placing, responsibility have deceived me. Do you realise the hypocrisy of your behaviour during the last year? You have been meeting Mr Carus Evans and myself on friendly, straightforward terms, with an open look on your face, and all the time, behind our backs, you've been philandering with girls in the town. I haven't asked you for any details and I am not going to; that doesn't enter into the question at all. You've been false and doublefaced. You've been acting a lie for a year. It's the sort of thing that makes me sick of the whole lot of you. You can go."
Roland walked back to the studies, perplexed and miserable. The word "deceit" had cut hard into him. He loathed crookedness and he had always considered himself dead straight. It was a boast of his that he had never told a lie, at least not to a boy; masters were different. Of course they were, and it was absurd to pretend they weren't. Everyone did things that they wouldn't care to tell the Chief. There was a barrier between. The relationship was not open like friendship. He saw the Chief's point of view, but he did not consider it a sound one. He disliked thesefine gradations of conduct, this talk of acting a lie: things were either black or white. He remembered how the Chief had once come round the upper dormitories and had endeavoured to persuade him that it was acting a lie to get into bed without cleaning his teeth. He had never understood why. An unclean act, perhaps, but acting a lie! oh, no, it wouldn't do. It was an unfair method of tackling the problem. It was hitting a man in the back, this appeal to a better nature. Life should be played like cricket, according to rules. You could either play for safety and score slowly, or you could run risks and hit across straight half-volleys. If one missed it one was out and that was the end of it. One didn't talk about acting a lie to the bowler because one played at the ball as though it were outside the leg stump. Why couldn't the Chief play the game like an umpire? Roland knew that he had done a thing which, in the eyes of authority, was wrong. He admitted that. He had known it was wrong all the time. He had been found out; he was prepared for punishment. That was the process of life. One took risks and paid the penalty. The issue was to Roland childishly simple, and he could not see why all these good people should complicate it so unnecessarily with their talk of hypocrisy and deceit.
That evening the headmaster wrote to Roland's father:
DearMrWhately,—I write to inform you of a matter that will cause you, I fear, a good deal of pain. I have discovered that for the last year Roland has been in the habit of going out for walks on Sunday afternoons with a young girl in the town, and that he has encouraged another and younger boy to accompany him. These walks resulted, I am sure, in nothing beyond a little harmless flirtation, and I do not regard the actual issue as important. I do consider, however, and I think that in this you will agree with me, that Roland's conduct in the matter is most reprehensible. It has involved a calculated and prolonged deception of you,his parent, and of us, his schoolmasters, and he has proved himself, I fear, unworthy of the responsibility of prefectship that I had hoped to place in him next term. If he were a younger boy the obvious course would be a sound thrashing. But Roland is too old for that. Perhaps he is too old to be at school at all. The leaving age of nineteen is arbitrary. Boys develop at such different ages; and though I should not myself have thought so before this affair arose, it may very well be that Roland has already passed beyond the age at which it is wise and, indeed, safe to keep him any longer at a school. For all we know, this trouble may prove to have been a blessing in disguise, and will have protected him from more serious difficulties. At any rate, I do not feel that I should be doing my duty by you or by the other parents who place the welfare of their boys in my hands if I were to keep Roland here after the summer. There is, of course, in this not the least suggestion of expulsion. Roland will leave at the end of the term with many of his contemporaries in the ordinary course of events. And he will become, if he wishes, as I hope he will wish, a member of the old Fernhurstian Society. Perhaps you may yourself decide to come down and have a talk with Roland. If so, perhaps we might discuss his future together. I do not myself see why this should prejudice in any way his going up to the University in a year's time. Of course he could not go up now as he has not yet passed responsions.I very much hope that you will come down and that we shall be able to discuss the whole matter from every point of view. Sincerely yours,J. F. Harrison.
DearMrWhately,—I write to inform you of a matter that will cause you, I fear, a good deal of pain. I have discovered that for the last year Roland has been in the habit of going out for walks on Sunday afternoons with a young girl in the town, and that he has encouraged another and younger boy to accompany him. These walks resulted, I am sure, in nothing beyond a little harmless flirtation, and I do not regard the actual issue as important. I do consider, however, and I think that in this you will agree with me, that Roland's conduct in the matter is most reprehensible. It has involved a calculated and prolonged deception of you,his parent, and of us, his schoolmasters, and he has proved himself, I fear, unworthy of the responsibility of prefectship that I had hoped to place in him next term. If he were a younger boy the obvious course would be a sound thrashing. But Roland is too old for that. Perhaps he is too old to be at school at all. The leaving age of nineteen is arbitrary. Boys develop at such different ages; and though I should not myself have thought so before this affair arose, it may very well be that Roland has already passed beyond the age at which it is wise and, indeed, safe to keep him any longer at a school. For all we know, this trouble may prove to have been a blessing in disguise, and will have protected him from more serious difficulties. At any rate, I do not feel that I should be doing my duty by you or by the other parents who place the welfare of their boys in my hands if I were to keep Roland here after the summer. There is, of course, in this not the least suggestion of expulsion. Roland will leave at the end of the term with many of his contemporaries in the ordinary course of events. And he will become, if he wishes, as I hope he will wish, a member of the old Fernhurstian Society. Perhaps you may yourself decide to come down and have a talk with Roland. If so, perhaps we might discuss his future together. I do not myself see why this should prejudice in any way his going up to the University in a year's time. Of course he could not go up now as he has not yet passed responsions.
I very much hope that you will come down and that we shall be able to discuss the whole matter from every point of view. Sincerely yours,
J. F. Harrison.
This letter arrived at Hammerton by the evening post. Mr Whately had that morning received a letter from Roland, written before the row, with an account of a house game in which he had made 59 runs and taken 3 wickets. Mr Whately was most excited.
"He's really doing remarkably well," he said, afterdinner. "He says that he's pretty certain for his second XI. colours, and I can't think why they don't give him a trial for the first. I know that Fernhurst have a pretty strong side this year, but they ought to try all the men they've got."
"He ought to get in next year at any rate," said his wife.
"Next year! Of course there should be no doubt about that at all. But I should like to see him get in this. It will make a big difference to his last term if he knows he's safe for his place. It's always a little worrying having to play for one's colours, and I should like him to have a really good last term. He's deserved it; he's worked hard; he's been a real success at Fernhurst."
His soliloquy was at this point interrupted by the double knock of the postman. Mr Whately jumped up at once.