by A. J. Cronin
Schubert’s songs: vision of the Rhine, the castles on its banks, Alison and I floating down, beneath arched bridges, on a little river steamer, disembarking at an old inn, a garden with little tables … Did I tell her all this? No. I croaked—in my “ breaking” voice: “You are getting on terribly well, Alison.”
She smiled deprecatingly, dwelling on the vagaries of her music mistress, who was, in fact, an exacting and acidulous spinster. “ Miss Cramb is hard to please!”
Silence again. We had reached the gate, that point at which I must leave her. I saw her steal an inquiring glance at me. A weakness was now all over my body, a tremulous warmth was flowing about my heart. I drew a sharp quivering breath. It was the supreme moment of dedication, that moment when knighthood comes to flower.
“Alison … I don’t suppose it matters to you … but to-day something happened to me … Mr. Reid told me I might sit the Marshall.”
“Robie!”
In her surprise and interest she used, earnestly, my name. With hands clenched, my pale cheeks burning, I saw that she had not failed to appreciate the full significance of the secret which I had at last divulged.
The Marshall was, of course, a tremendous thing, of which the name must never, never be taken in vain. It was a scholarship to the College of Winton, founded by Sir John Marshall a century ago, open to the entire county of Winton and of tremendous monetary value—one hundred pounds per annum for five years. It stood as an expression of the passionate Scottish desire for advancement, for education, the determination to give the poor “lad of parts” his chance. Great men had first displayed their greatness by winning this prize—once, when a famous statesman died, a man from Winton whose name was echoed with respect across the seas to the corners of the world, the highest tribute paid to him was that single grave reflection by one who had been his contemporary at the Academy: “Aye … I mind the day he carried off the Marshall.”
“I’ll never win it,” I said in a low voice. “ But I wanted you to be the first to know I’m going to try.”
“I think you have a spendid chance,” Alison said generously. “ It will make a tremendous difference to you if you win?”
“Yes,” I answered. “All the difference in the world.”
I gazed at her blindly. Lyrical words lay behind my tongue. But I could not speak them. Growing flustered, I shifted my weight from one foot to another.
“I hope it keeps up over the holiday,” I said.
“Oh, I hope so,” Alison answered.
“On Monday I’m going on the Loch with Gavin.”
“Oh, are you?”
There was a throbbing pause.
“Good night then, Alison.”
“Good night, Robie.”
We parted stiffly, abruptly. As usual, I had bungled everything. Yet, as I hurried along Drumbuck Road, I felt the world still a splendid place, still rich in splendid promise.
Chapter Four
That sweet parting should have been the ending of my day. But alas, there remained the strange and tortuous process of getting to my bed. And to-night was my “ night of the Lion’s Bridge.” Although unusual emotion had tired me I forced myself relentlessly past Lomond View and on to the dark country road leading to the bridge, two miles away. Have we not studied Grandma in her method of retirement? Why, therefore, should we spare this boy, this Robert Shannon, since our purpose is to reveal him truthfully, to expose him in all his dreams, strivings and follies, with as dispassionate, as merciless, a blade as that with which he dissected poor Rana temporaria, the frog?
The evening had turned more chill and unfriendly. When I reached the bridge, damp clouds dulled the half-moon, a gusty wind was troubling the young leaves. Tightly buttoning my jacket, Murdoch’s jacket, I advanced. The bridge was an old bridge, spanning the River Leven as it poured down from the hills, bound by a narrow stone coping built out above the torrent in three semicircular bays. At each end of the coping was a masoned gargoyle, weather-worn and mutilated, yet still discernible as a grinning lion’s face.
Completely alone, I climbed on to the high coping; then, with a sharp intake of breath, began to work my way across the narrow parapet of the bridge. Far below, as I edged along, I heard the unseen tumbling of the waters. The bays were the worst. There, I seemed poised on a high dark precipice while the coping, the bridge, the whole world swayed and spun about me.
I had no head for heights; the ordeal was the most frightening I could devise. But at last I had done it—across and back. Returned to the solid road, I leaned faintly, with shut eyes, against the figure of the grinning lion. No wonder the king of beasts was amused at my distress. Madness, yes, madness … Yet when one is poor and despised, when one trembles and blushes at a sudden laugh from passing strangers, when one has the nervous affliction of moving one’s scalp and ears, it is necessary, ah, yes, it is most necessary, to prove, only to oneself, that one is not a coward.
I went home at least partially appeased. The house was in darkness—now not even a peep of gas was permitted in the lobby. I tiptoed up the stairs to the bathroom, bolted the door silently; and with great caution, since Papa would not permit the waste of a single drop of water, I ran a cold bath.
The water was frigid, even to my fingers, yet when I had removed my clothes I lay in it, motionless, with my teeth clenched, until my body was numb and senseless. This was no proof of valour but a precaution, one might say a prayer, against that wretchedness which might overtake one in the night.
I crept upstairs. I was now occupying Murdoch’s old room—during the few winter weeks when Murdoch slept at home he used the larger, better, room which once was Kate’s. Icy cold, almost disembodied, I lit the end of tallow candle in the enamel candlestick. Around me, shadowy as myself, were my school prizes, worthless books in pretentious bindings—there were at least three copies of Porter’s Scottish Chiefs—also my precious microscope and natural history collections, contained in cardboard boxes, cases I had made, all of which had cost nothing. Writing materials stood on the top of the chest of drawers and another book, borrowed from the public library, entitled The Cure of Self-Consciousness.
Taking up this volume I opened it at Exercise Ten.
“Place yourself calmly before a looking-glass,” I read. “ Fold your arms and gaze at your reflection steadily. Then, narrowing your eyes, give yourself a fearless stare. You are strong, composed, cool.” Without question I was cool. “Next, take a deep breath, exhale firmly and repeat three times, in a low yet potent voice, ‘Julius Caesar and Napoleon! I will! I will!! I will!!!’”
I obeyed the instructions implicitly—although my eyes watered and their green hue disheartened me a little. I even took a torn-out sheet of exercise book, printed in bold letters the words “ I WILL” and pinned it on the wall where it would meet my fearless stare whenever I awoke. Then I knelt down by the bed.
My prayers were long and complicated, strainingly kept free from all distractions, not directed towards the vague bearded God of my early childhood, but centred ardently upon the Saviour. Occasionally I would guiltily remember the Father and the Holy Ghost and hasten to placate them. But Jesus, in His infinite love and goodness, was the Custodian of my trusting heart. And when I thought of His Mother, whose face had lately grown suspiciously like Alison’s face, tears of yearning welled from my closed eyes. Nor were the Saints forgotten. I was continually running up against new Saints I wanted to pray to; and of course once I had started I could not leave them out for fear of offending them. The newest figure in my growing calendar was Anthony, protector of youth.
The final act is at hand: opportunity for that laugh, that sudden unwanted laugh which one hears often in the theatre at a moment when the author has meant to convey something of quiet pathos, of truth, and has failed or perhaps been misunderstood. Let us laugh together, then, as, looking back, we see this lanky shivering boy, this simpleton barely purified by the ordeal of the bridge and the icy bath, take from a hiding place at the back of the drawer
a strange instrument, a piece of rope to which are tied bits of old iron, two heavy door keys, a door handle, a broken piece of skate. Quickly, with the familiarity of custom, he ties this about his waist in such a manner that the disturbing metal bears upon his spine. Thus, if he lies upon his back, the position in which one dreams, he will at once awaken. At last he is beneath the patched sheet, curled stiffly upon his side. He has blown out the candle. He is girded like an anchorite and round his scraggy neck he wears a rosary, four authentic miraculous medals, one blessed by the Holy Father Himself, also the brown scapulars and the blue scapulars—if there were pink or heliotrope scapulars he would certainly wear these too. He has done everything he can. Comforted by this thought, he invites the little death of sleep, with one final aspiration.
“Dear Lord … please let me win the Marshall.”
Chapter Five
Morning comes early and joyfully upon a holiday. On Monday, before the white sky showed its first signs of brightening, I was out of the house quietly, and waiting at the Levenford Cross for Tom Drin, who was to drop me off at Luss on his lochside delivery round.
Tom was late and in a bad humour. He should not have had to work to-day—even I was exempt from my obligations with the rolls—but they were very short-handed at the Blair warehouse. I climbed into the flat, open van amongst the bags of meal and we set off behind the quiet clop-clopping of the horse.
The empty cobbled streets were fresh with morning. A woman taking in milk, a man in his shirt twitching the blind of an upper window, a girl sleepily banging a bass mat at a half-open door—all this conveyed a shining sense of expedition. I was going fishing with Gavin; my last fling before I settled down to grind for the Marshall.
The sun rose but did not break through. It was one of those still silvery days, full of warmth and soft luminous light, when sounds, though muted, are heard from afar and the intervening silences are filled with the rushing of the sap in the green leaves. As the horse’s back rose and fell gently, like a ship, between the shafts, the countryside slipped past—misted woods, glimpses of park land, a grey mansion with tall chimneys, terraces and glasshouses, amongst the steaming trees.
At the back doors of these big country houses I helped Tom to unload the sacks and forage. He was a shaggy, muddling sort of man and was several times hard put to propitiate an angry groom complaining that his “order” had been imperfectly executed. Once, as we lifted a heavy box, we found that the hundredweight bag of meal underneath had burst and discharged its contents through the floorboards of the van. Tom cursed, scratched his head, then said to me with an air of smoothing things over: “ Never mind, never mind. It’ll not be missed!”
When we jogged into Luss it was afternoon, and Gavin was seated, yet without impatience, on the milestone at the head of the short village street. He wore the restrained outfit of his exclusive school, grey flannel trousers and shirt, a shapeless cricketing hat of the same grey, relieved, or, rather exalted by a thin band of blue and white, the Larchfield colours. Impossible to convey the distinction of this waiting figure—grown, like myself, yet still slight—the restrained unconscious pride of that face, already sunburned, beneath the careless, pulled-down hat. At least I can record the silent joy of our terrible handclasp.
“No fishing until evening, I’m afraid,” Gavin murmured, as the van lumbered off. “No wind and too bright.”
We walked through the quiet lochside village, passing between a score of cottages, all low, straw-thatched and whitewashed, spaced on the short white road which began at the green hill foot and ended at the silver Loch. Fuchsias and rambler roses grew up the cottages, losing themselves in the yellow thatch. The fuchsias were already in flower, dripping a crimson shower against the whitewashed walls. A brown collie dog lay stretched out, dreaming in the white dust. There came a sweet hum of bees. Through the haze we could see the toy wooden pier with row-boats moored by bleached ropes. At such beauty, we exchanged our rare, our secret glance.
Until the hidden sun went down, Gavin and I sat on an upturned boat, outside his father’s fishing hut, sorting out tackle, practising that economy of words to which we were pledged. At seven o’clock, after Mrs. Glen, the woman of the cottage, had given us a fine tea of fresh baked scones and boiled new-laid eggs washed down with creamy milk, we righted the boat, pushed it into the water. It was still too early, but the mauve shimmer on the Loch was giving promise of the dusk. I took the oars, pulling out to the still coolness, then stopped rowing, letting the boat drift out, far out upon the calm between the high hills. As the light faded the mauve deepened to dark purple, our faces grew indistinct, then from the disappearing shore came the slow sound of the bagpipes, like the far voice of a man who has lost everything except his soul. I felt Gavin grow rigid in the boat with an anguish of feeling. Nothing was proof against this moment and that sound, not even our stoic vows. Hidden by the growing darkness, suddenly, and in a low voice, Gavin spoke.
“I understand you are sitting the Marshall, Robie?”
I started, quite taken aback. “Yes.… How did you know?”
“Mrs. Keith told my sister.” Gavin paused, rather heavily. “ I am trying for it too.”
I gazed at him dumbly; even the mountains seemed to share my shocked confusion.
“But Gavin … you don’t need the Bursary!”
His frown was palpable in the darkness.
“You’d be surprised.” He spoke slowly, with deep embarrassment. “My father has been worried in the business lately. When you buy in bulk—corn and oats, for instance—sometimes you have to take a heavy loss. It isn’t as easy as some people think.… I mean these people who envy my father and run him down for keeping up what they call too much style.” He paused. “My father doesn’t like display, Robie. But he has his position to keep up as Provost.” A longer pause. “ He’s done so much for me … now that he’s so worried I would like to do something for him.”
I was silent. I had known for a long time that Gavin worshipped his father; and I had heard whispers that all was not well with the Provost’s business. Yet the knowledge that we must oppose each other for the prize on which I had set my heart came as an unexpected blow. Before I could speak he went on.
“With all the cleverest boys in the county competing, one more won’t make much difference. Besides, there’s the honour of the town. Do you know, it’s twelve years since a Levenford boy took the Bursary.” He drew a fierce breath of resolution. “ One of us must win it.”
“You may be the one, Gavin,” I said, in a strained voice, only too well aware that he was a fine scholar.
We did not now engage upon those passionate repudiations which had been a feature of our younger days. Gavin replied broodingly: “I admit I would like to win for my father’s sake. But I think you have a better chance … it’s hard for me to say that, for I’m proud … I suppose it’s my Highland blood … and having so wonderful a father.” He paused. “If you win, will you go on to be a doctor? … Or”—he lowered his voice as though he might be overheard—“do you still want to be a priest?”
Not yet recovered from the shock of his earlier communication, I nevertheless received the question with dignity. Gavin was the only person on earth before whom I would reveal myself.
“I don’t think I’m good enough to be a priest,” I said. “And I must admit my whole heart is set on being a medical biologist, you know, a doctor who does research. Of course when I think of Father Damien and the Curé d’Ars, especially during benediction, I want to give up everything, even falling in love with some good and beautiful girl.” A wave of renunciation swept over me. “Yes, then I simply long to go away and try to be a really great saint, eating mouldy potatoes, treating money like dross—that especially would be wonderful—and living in a rough habit and a kind of trance before the altar. I wish I could make you understand what it means, Gavin, when, at benediction, we have our exposition.”
“I have an idea,” Gavin murmured, rather shamefaced. “ Of course �
�� it would be awful for you if it wasn’t what you thought.” He added: “ I mean, if after all it was only bread.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “ It would be awful. But by praying you can keep that thought out of your head. Prayer is really wonderful, Gavin. You can’t imagine the things I’ve got by praying, for them. And I could give you hundreds, well, dozens of other cases. You know Mrs. Rourke who keeps the dairy shop. Well, Papa was going to prosecute her for selling deficient milk. I saw her praying and praying in church. And do you know, Gavin, the milk bottle that Papa had taken the sample in burst. Yes, burst completely during the test. And it was the only time this had ever happened to Papa in all his experience.” I got my breath again. “ Of course one mustn’t pray for unworthy intentions. Although they say that Madame de Pompadour’s emerald eyes were lovely, you know I loathe the colour of mine; but one wouldn’t pray to have that changed, at least, not overnight.”
“Will you pray to win the Marshall?” Gavin asked rather stiffly.
“Yes … I’m afraid I shall, Gavin.” I hung my head, then added, with a rush of generous enthusiasm: “ But if I’m not to be allowed to win I’ll pray that you do. You’re so decent, Gavin, not like most people in the town, even some of my relatives … You know how they look down on Catholics. Isn’t it absurd? Why, only the other day Canon Roche showed me in the almanac that all over the world there are thirty-two Catholic dukes, just think of it, thirty-two dukes … and all that one hears in Levenford is … Well, never mind. But that’s why I’d like to succeed, just to show them”—a dramatic note entered my voice—“that someone who is despised could be great … could become a wonderful scientist … a kind of Saviour of humanity … perhaps reconcile science and religion … perhaps reconcile all the religions.”
Overcome by my own stupendous conception, I was silent.
“Yes,” Gavin said slowly. “ It’s pretty rotten that we’ve got to fight each other over the Bursary. Nothing will interfere with our friendship of course. But we must take and give no quarter.” He smiled palely. “I know some prayers, too.…”
