by Ursula Bloom
The boy crimsoned; he felt the greatness of the honour and also the guilt of the catapult.
Mr. Thorne said: ‘What are you going to be when you grow up, Blair?’
‘I wanted to be a sailor, sir, but I expect I’ll have to go into my father’s office.’
‘You’d prefer the sea?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’ He lost his nervousness in the sudden desire to tell Mr. Thorne how deeply he felt about this, and had done for some time.
‘I think,’ said the headmaster, ‘that it is very important to be what you want to be.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One of these days I’ll have a chat with your father. We got two boys into Dartmouth last term, only you’d have to work for it.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The words stuck. He stood there dumbly looking up at Mr. Thorne, rather like a dog.
‘Right,’ said the head, and went away again.
But the garden was different. Everything was different because the world had changed. He had a friend at court, someone who would help, who would speak to his father, and who would probably get him to sea. He took the catapult out of his pocket, and now he knew that he was ashamed of it. He flung it from him into the laurels, darkly shiny with rain. It did not mean anything to him any more.
When Hugo got home the house seemed to have become smaller than he had remembered it. Emily met him at the station, and drove with him to the house, holding his hand all the time, which was embarrassing. The laurels were in full leaf against a clear blue sky, but the house seemed to have grown smaller, or he had become bigger, it worked the same either way.
In the night nursery there were the same pictures, and the paper with the dado of gnomes and fairies, which Emily herself had put there one spring-cleaning; and now he was bitterly ashamed of them, because he knew that they were silly and babyish, and that he was a man. He had crossed a rubicon, the rubicon between little baby boy hats and a school cap; the rubicon between being washed by a woman and washing himself or not washing at all.
He went down to dinner with his father, who arrived home late. Now, thought the child, we shall understand one another. But when he saw the door open and his father come in he knew that they did not understand one another one whit better. School had made no difference to that. The sick fear was at Hugo’s heart, and he found it the more paralysing because he was less accustomed to it. He could only sit and watch the man, knowing that those thin lips were cruel, knowing that those eyes held no pity or understanding of any kind.
‘Well?’ said his father, ‘so you aren’t finding school such a bed of roses?’
‘I like it,’ said the boy; but his voice was so small, and he felt the blood pricking as it pulsed through his arms ‒ a feeling that only came to him when he was apprehensive of something horrible about to happen.
‘Lots of the cane? The cane does boys good,’ said his father, and his lips curled lasciviously.
The child said nothing.
They went into the dining-room, with its remembered scent of the wine kept in the sideboard which had permeated into the wood. Hugo had always loved the sideboard, which never lost the Christmas smell of tangerines stored in the left-hand cupboard, whilst the wine was stocked in the one on the right. They ate a silent meal, and the boy disappeared to bed, grateful to be away in the night nursery, even if it were unmanly.
Home was not lovely.
Emily was a dear, and he liked hearing about Mr. Binns, and her coming marriage; he liked lying under the walnut tree and smelling the warm nutty fragrance of the leaves in summer, with the little walnuts dropping to the grass when they were dried off in the drought, or seeing the dark branches half-silvered in winter.
But home was not lovely. School was lovely and he wanted to be back. Though when the day came to go back, he feigned homesickness because Emily seemed to expect it of him, and Mr. Powell, who was in charge of the train at the terminus in London, seemed to think that the boys should appear dispirited. Nobody was too bright. Yet in Hugo’s heart there was that ecstasy of feeling: ‘I’m going back. To-night I shall be sleeping in the dorm again. I’m going back.’ And though he stared gloomily out of the windows in faithful imitation of the others, all the time his heart was singing within him in rhythm with the drumming of the wheels. ‘Ta-romp-ti-tomp-ti-tomp-ti-tomp. I’m going back. I’m going back.’
The other boys had mothers. He remembered that as he lay in the dorm that night, not wishing to sleep too soon in case he missed one moment of the joyfulness of return. Having a mother made a great difference, he supposed. Lying there this particular night, he found himself wondering what his mother had been like, and why he had never seen a picture of her. Other boys with dead mothers had pictures; Williamson had a dead mother, and there was a miniature of her hung above his locker. She didn’t look like a mother at all, but youngly girlish, with soft yellow hair and very blue eyes, and a little wisp of tulle round her shoulders like the lovely ladies on chocolate boxes. He rather hoped that his mother had been like that; he must ask somebody. But nobody had known her, save his father, and somehow he could never ask his father anything.
In his second term he progressed in class. Learning came easily to him. Towards the end of that term Mr. Thorne wrote to James Blair and said that he knew the boy had leanings towards the sea, and suggested that he would make a likely candidate for Dartmouth. The answer came by return of post; it was terse and to the point, brooking no argument. Hugo would go into the tea office, whatever his leanings might be, and his father did not want any nonsensical ideas to be encouraged.
When Hugo went home those holidays he found his father worse than before. The breach between them had widened considerably.
Hugo, growing older, was developing a personality; he was developing from the bough entirely to be bent; he had already some set opinions, and the one which refused to be broken on the wheel of his father’s intolerance was the longing for the sea. For some unaccountable reason James Blair had been made furiously angry at Mr. Thorne’s Dartmouth suggestion. He had gone to the office that day with his eyes looking more like beach pebbles than ever, and his mouth curved in that shocking little self-congratulatory smile which had the quality and cruelty of steel in it.
Mr. Minch’s heart had sunk when he had seen his master coming in like that, more especially so because he had to break to him to-day the unfortunate fact that the Hayes contract had fallen through. The Hayes restaurants were a string of chain cafes prevalent in London and in the larger provincial cities, and they had been making inquiries about the Blair teas. James Blair had been desirous of establishing himself with the Hayes restaurants, and yesterday their reply (a definitely depressing one) had been received. Ebenezer Minch had meant to approach James Blair yesterday, but he had already been in a temper owing to one of the secretaries’ recurring biliousness, so that Ebenezer had postponed handing over the letter from Hayes till the morrow. However, the morrow was an even worse choice, and now the letter had to be disclosed.
Mr. Minch saw James Blair coming up the alley and he knew that life had not dealt kindly with him. Mr. Minch had been peering out through the grimy leaves of the creeper to try to get the first impression of Mr. Blair’s mood, because the Hayes letter was on his conscience. He heard the office door open, and knew that the great man had stamped in and through to his own room, where the bell rang sharply for Ebenezer Minch. Mr. Minch had been skulking in the cloakroom, labelled ‘Gents’ outside, and inside filthy; the one shallow basin was thick with grease, the uncovered floor evilly stained, and the cistern ‒ of uncongenial zinc ‒ troubled with chronic indigestion. It was no good skulking here, he told himself, he had to go; he settled his double collar and went out.
‘Mr. Blair’s rung for you,’ said yesterday’s invalid, a pallid, auburn-haired young woman, now more like a tallow candle than ever.
‘I’m not deaf,’ replied Mr. Minch.
‘How I hate him!’ said the secretary to Miss Piper. ‘I hope Mr. Blair gives him s
omething to get on with, really I do.’
In the holy of holies James Blair had taken off his overcoat, hanging it on a hanger expressly bought for this purpose, and finished off with a small clothes brush, because he was finicky with regard to his clothes. His bowler had gone into the cupboard, and he was now sitting in his big chair, scowling at the clean sheet of blotting-paper purposely put there by Mr. Minch earlier this morning.
‘The Hayes contract,’ said James Blair. ‘Last night I rang them up. They said they had written. Why is there no letter?’
‘It is here, sir,’ said Mr. Minch, aware of the grim constriction in his throat which always came when he was nervous. ‘I’m afraid, sir, I’m very much afraid ‒’
‘Give it to me.’ Mr. Blair snatched the letter and read it. As he digested the contents a profound frown settled on his brow. ‘So,’ he said. Ebenezer Minch said nothing; he was acutely aware of his inability to cope with the unfortunate situation; he ought to make some clever suggestion, but he could not do so. ‘Bah!’ said Mr. Blair suddenly; and then (because he always had to put blame on to other people), ‘I ought to have been told of this at once. Yesterday I could have seen Sir John Hayes, to-day it is too late. Why have you so far exceeded your duty? Why was this letter not brought to me immediately upon its arrival?’
Now, yesterday’s reason (excellent at the time) seemed to have become merely stupid.
‘Miss Helstone being ill, sir.’
‘What had that to do with it?’
‘I thought that perhaps, sir, you would not wish to be worried.’
‘You shouldn’t think. Never attempt matters beyond your power. You can’t think. It is for me to do the thinking, not you.’
‘I’m very sorry, sir.’
James Blair looked at him with his repulsively twisted face and the coldly clear eyes. ‘Your fault; entirely your fault,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir.’
It wasn’t Ebenezer Minch’s fault, but he had no other course open to him save to accept the blame. He loathed it, but he could do nothing but agree.
‘Your fault,’ repeated James Blair with emphasis; and then, ‘You may go; but remember this. If you again encroach on your position here as an old and trusted servant, I shall forget your years of service and shall treat you as I should treat a new servant here on trial: I shall dismiss you. Understand that! I shall not have one moment’s compunction. I shall dismiss you.’ He dwelt upon the words as though he loved them.
There was nothing more that Ebenezer Minch could say save, ‘Yes, sir.’
Mr. Minch felt abject all day, like a whipped child. He crept about the office; he crept out to the uncomfortable restaurant round the corner, stalely pungent with steak-and kidney pudding and strong, dark tea. He ate his meal at a table already overcrowded with four fat men, who elbowed Ebenezer because they recognised him as a little sycophant of a man who could be shoved out of the way. It was a ninepenny meal; he could not afford more. Ninepence was what he allowed himself, and it meant that he had always to choose between a roll with the meat, or coffee after. To-day he had steak and Norfolk dumpling for sevenpence, which did away with the need for a pudding, and he had coffee. The other men talked loudly, and the whole air of the place was offensive. In his heart he hated it, but came here because there was nowhere else to go.
He felt that he was a worm; as a worm he crawled back again to the office, and worked through the afternoon. As a worm he saw his employer off at five, and finally at six took himself to the station. As a worm he got into the crowded train, to see a fat office boy grab the only remaining seat with impudent relish and start whistling. As a worm he got out at Dulwich, and marched down the Croxted Road; but the moment that he came to his own street he was no longer a worm. He straightened himself; he was now James Blair, lord and master of his own domain, director of other people’s lives, a hero.
He turned in at the small gate, gloomily viewing the sour little front garden; the evergreen hedge took all the goodness out of the soil, that was the trouble, the hedge and the cats! He had always hated animals, particularly cats, who were no better than wild animals and had no real love for their masters. The key slid into the lock and turned; instantly there came the strong smell of Ronuk and Brasso and furniture polish, all manifestations of Jessie’s labour on his behalf. The lino shone like the icy path upon the face of a glacier, and the brass on the walls was white-gold. He did not go into the front room, which was reserved only for Sundays, and such frivolities as Easter, Christmas and funerals; he went into the back room adjoining the kitchen, making it handy for meals.
It was a small, square room, with a cheap mantelpiece supporting a black marble clock (the present subscribed for by the office for Mr. Minch on his wedding) and two gleaming brass candlesticks. The small window was voluminously curtained, the plain table ponderously draped in preparation for supper and distressed by the opulence of the box-like cruet. Everything was spotless, for Jessie loved her home, and it was censed by the odour of over-cleanliness which was the dominant factor of the establishment. Really it was a grim little room, but a palace to Ebenezer and Jessie; to her in particular, because she had come here as a bride, and still hung the place with the romance of bridal illusion.
She came in from the kitchen, her sallow face shiny from the heat. Mr. Minch had hung his coat on the hanger in the hall, in imitation of his employer; as he passed he put his bowler in the cupboard kept for it, and came in to supper, smarming down his hair with the moist palms of his hands.
‘I hope you’ve got something good for supper,’ he said commandingly; ‘I’ve had to work hard,’ with a threat of severity.
‘It’s steak, with tomatoes, and a date pudding.’ She said it wearily, because she had tired herself out in cooking and making the house shine to welcome him.
He rubbed his hands. ‘Very good. I could do with a nice piece of steak.’ He never told her of the poverty of his city lunches, and she believed that he was able to order what he wished.
‘Perhaps we could go the pictures after?’ she suggested. Stupidly she always looked forward to her husband’s return, helplessly dressing him up as some Romeo, and he always disappointed her. Instantly she knew that he had not received this suggestion well.
‘The pictures? Why?’
‘Well, I thought ‒’
Admirable opportunity! ‘You shouldn’t think. Sometimes, Jessie, you go too far.’ He could bring out that very remark from James Blair that had maddened him this morning. ‘It is for me to do the thinking. Never attempt matters beyond your power. You can’t think. The pictures are not at all a good idea. I’m worn out; you forget that I work.’
‘So do I,’ she said; but it lacked conviction because she was so tired. She couldn’t argue with him, and she knew it. She had been up since a quarter to seven; she had to, because the woman only came on Fridays, and somebody had to get the breakfast for Ebenezer. She knew that most of the wives in the street laid the breakfast overnight, and used thermos flasks and cold ham, and that sort of thing, but Ebenezer wasn’t the kind of man to put up with cheerless comfort. He was autocratic and insistent that everything should be exactly to his liking. He was in all senses the stronger vessel, and for ever impressing this upon her. She knew that one side of her nature was afraid of him, and dare not take liberties with him.
‘I am not going to the pictures,’ he remarked, ‘and you can remember that.’
‘Very well.’
‘And I’d like my meal soon. I’m not in the mood for delay.’
‘Very well.’
She went back into the kitchen, irritatingly aware that he had sunk into the easy chair, and was pulling out the old carpet slippers which he kept under the frill. He was the man who gave orders, and she could only obey; she was nothing more than a servant really.
She saw that the steak was frying too fast, and, making a hurried movement to the gas stove, grabbed the pan. The atmosphere was steamy, and the smell of stale cooking sickened her. She
stood there with the fork, prodding the steak from time to time, her body drooping wearily, her face wet with the steam. Then, as she dished up, she said to herself: ‘Oh, I hate him; why did I ever marry him? He wasn’t always like this!’ and knew that her eyes dimmed.
Hugo went back to school when the holidays ended, and found that Mr. Thorne was exceedingly disappointed that after all the boy was not to be entered for Dartmouth.
During the holidays Emily had married Mr. Binns, and had sent Hugo a large piece of highly scented cake, which he thought delicious, and also a photograph on a postcard of herself looking very embarrassed in a new costume with an over-flowered hat, and Mr. Binns, stiffly at attention, but with an awkward grin and wearing a flowing white ribbon attached to his ‘silk’. Hugo did not show his father the photograph, which he felt might meet with disapproval, but he kept it in his Bible and occasionally took it out to look at, though not to dwell on the well-loved face of the kindly Emily but to stare admiringly at Mr. Binns in his ‘number ones’, looking conspicuous. The photograph returned to school with him, and in dull moments in chapel it was shown surreptitiously to other little boys who were eager to see it. They never glanced at the bride, the usual focus of all interest; they had no eyes for any save the groom in his ‘number ones’ and the bridal ribbon attached to his ‘silk’.
The prep school was very happy; it was so much happier than home that it always made Hugo feel that he was disloyal. Emily leaving him broke a link; there was nobody to take her place in the same way when he returned again. The house seemed to be unnaturally quiet during the next holidays, and there was that quality of strangeness about the nursery robbed of Emily’s bed yet still hung with the babyish pictures. But the model boat was still there as a faithful reminder of Mr. Binns. That was something that could not change.
There was the walnut tree as ever, with the big knots of green leaves growing out of the old bole, and the coarse nettles and grasses at the base, where the mower could not cut, and where insects thrived.
There was the thrill of the wasps’ nest, which was burnt out there and left a dark smudge of scorched grass. Hugo helped in the taking of the wasps’ nest; but although he started it in a state of wild excitement, afterwards he felt ashamed, as though he had played some horrible prank on the old tree, a benign old tree which in itself had only wished him kindliness and joy.
