by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER VII.
THE RECKONING.
And after the day of Love came the days of Reckoning.Mr. Lewisham was astonished--overwhelmed almost--by that Reckoning,as it slowly and steadily unfolded itself. The wonderful emotions ofSaturday carried him through Sunday, and he made it up with theneglected Schema by assuring it that She was his Inspiration, and thathe would work for Her a thousand times better than he could possiblywork for himself. That was certainly not true, and indeed he foundhimself wondering whither the interest had vanished out of histheological examination of Butler's Analogy. The Frobishers were notat church for either service. He speculated rather anxiously why?
Monday dawned coldly and clearly--a Herbert Spencer of a day--and hewent to school sedulously assuring himself there was nothing toapprehend. Day boys were whispering in the morning apparently abouthim, and Frobisher ii. was in great request. Lewisham overheard afragment "My mother _was_ in a wax," said Frobisher ii.
At twelve came an interview with Bonover, and voices presently risingin angry altercation and audible to Senior-assistant Dunkerley throughthe closed study door. Then Lewisham walked across the schoolroom,staring straight before him, his cheeks very bright.
Thereby Dunkerley's mind was prepared for the news that came the nextmorning over the exercise books. "When?" said Dunkerley.
"End of next term," said Lewisham.
"About this girl that's been staying at the Frobishers?"
"Yes."
"She's a pretty bit of goods. But it will mess up your matric nextJune," said Dunkerley.
"That's what I'm sorry for."
"It's scarcely to be expected he'll give you leave to attend theexam...."
"He won't," said Lewisham shortly, and opened his first exercisebook. He found it difficult to talk.
"He's a greaser," said Dunkerley. "But there!--what can you expectfrom Durham?" For Bonover had only a Durham degree, and Dunkerley,having none, inclined to be particular. Therewith Dunkerley lapsedinto a sympathetic and busy rustling over his own pile ofexercises. It was not until the heap had been reduced to a book or sothat he spoke again--an elaborate point.
"Male and female created He them," said Dunkerley, ticking his waydown the page. "Which (tick, tick) was damned hard (tick, tick) onassistant masters."
He closed the book with a snap and flung it on the floor behindhim. "You're lucky," he said. "I _did_ think I should be first to getout of this scandalising hole. You're lucky. It's always acting downhere. Running on parents and guardians round every corner. That's whatI object to in life in the country: it's so confoundedlyartificial. _I_ shall take jolly good care _I_ get out of it just assoon as ever I can. You bet!"
"And work those patents?"
"Rather, my boy. Yes. Work those patents. The Patent Square TopBottle! Lord! Once let me get to London...."
"I think _I_ shall have a shot at London," said Lewisham.
And then the experienced Dunkerley, being one of the kindest young menalive, forgot certain private ambitions of his own--he cherisheddreams of amazing patents--and bethought him of agents. He proceededto give a list of these necessary helpers of the assistant master atthe gangway--Orellana, Gabbitas, The Lancaster Gate Agency, and therest of them. He knew them all--intimately. He had been a "nix" eightyears. "Of course that Kensington thing may come off," said Dunkerley,"but it's best not to wait. I tell you frankly--the chances areagainst you."
The "Kensington thing" was an application for admission to the NormalSchool of Science at South Kensington, which Lewisham had made in asanguine moment. There being an inadequate supply of qualified scienceteachers in England, the Science and Art Department is wont to offerfree instruction at its great central school and a guinea a week toselect young pedagogues who will bind themselves to teach scienceafter their training is over. Dunkerley had been in the habit ofapplying for several years, always in vain, and Lewisham had seen noharm in following his example. But then Dunkerley had no green-greycertificates.
So Lewisham spent all that "duty" left him of the next day composing aletter to copy out and send the several scholastic agencies. In thishe gave a brief but appreciative sketch of his life, and enlarged uponhis discipline and educational methods. At the end was a long anddecorative schedule of his certificates and distinctions, beginningwith a good-conduct prize at the age of eight. A considerable amountof time was required to recopy this document, but his modesty upheldhim. After a careful consideration of the time-table, he set aside themidday hour for "Correspondence."
He found that his work in mathematics and classics was already sometime in arrears, and a "test" he had sent to his correspondence Tutorduring those troublous days after the meeting with Bonover in theAvenue, came back blottesquely indorsed: "Below Pass Standard." Thislast experience was so unprecedented and annoyed him so much that fora space he contemplated retorting with a sarcastic letter to thetutor. And then came the Easter recess, and he had to go home and tellhis mother, with a careful suppression of details, that he was leavingWhortley, "Where you have been getting on so well!" cried his mother.
But that dear old lady had one consolation. She observed he had givenup his glasses--he had forgotten to bring them with him--and hersecret fear of grave optical troubles--that were being "kept" fromher---was alleviated.
Sometimes he had moods of intense regret for the folly of thatwalk. One such came after the holidays, when the necessity of revisingthe dates of the Schema brought before his mind, for the first timequite clearly, the practical issue of this first struggle with allthose mysterious and powerful influences the spring-time setsa-stirring. His dream of success and fame had been very real and dearto him, and the realisation of the inevitable postponement of his longanticipated matriculation, the doorway to all the other great things,took him abruptly like an actual physical sensation in his chest.
He sprang up, pen in hand, in the midst of his corrections, and beganpacing up and down the room. "What a fool I have been!" hecried. "What a fool I have been!"
He flung the pen on the floor and made a rush at an ill-drawn attemptupon a girl's face that adorned the end of his room, the visiblewitness of his slavery. He tore this down and sent the fragments of itscattering....
"Fool!"
It was a relief--a definite abandonment. He stared for a moment at thedestruction he had made, and then went back to the revision of thetime-table, with a mutter about "silly spooning."
That was one mood. The rarer one. He watched the posts with far moreeagerness for the address to which he might write to her than for anyreply to those reiterated letters of application, the writing of whichnow ousted Horace and the higher mathematics (Lewisham's term forconics) from his attention. Indeed he spent more time meditating theletter to her than even the schedule of his virtues had required.
Yet the letters of application were wonderful compositions; each had anew pen to itself and was for the first page at least in a handwritingfar above even his usual high standard. And day after day passed andthat particular letter he hoped for still did not come.
His moods were complicated by the fact that, in spite of his studiedreticence on the subject, the reason of his departure did in anamazingly short time get "all over Whortley." It was understood thathe had been discovered to be "fast," and Ethel's behaviour wasanimadverted upon with complacent Indignation--if the phrase may beallowed--by the ladies of the place. Pretty looks were too often asnare. One boy--his ear was warmed therefor--once called aloud"Ethel," as Lewisham went by. The curate, a curate of the pale-faced,large-knuckled, nervous sort, now passed him without acknowledgment ofhis existence. Mrs. Bonover took occasion to tell him that he was a"mere boy," and once Mrs. Frobisher sniffed quite threateningly at himwhen she passed him in the street. She did it so suddenly she made himjump.
This general disapproval inclined him at times to depression, but incertain moods he found it exhilarating, and several times he professedhimself to Dunkerley not a little of a blade. In others, he toldhimself he bore it for _her
_ sake. Anyhow he had to bear it.
He began to find out, too, how little the world feels the need of ayoung man of nineteen--he called himself nineteen, though he hadseveral months of eighteen still to run--even though he adds prizesfor good conduct, general improvement, and arithmetic, and advancedcertificates signed by a distinguished engineer and headed with theRoyal Arms, guaranteeing his knowledge of geometrical drawing,nautical astronomy, animal physiology, physiography, inorganicchemistry, and building construction, to his youth and strength andenergy. At first he had imagined headmasters clutching at the chanceof him, and presently he found himself clutching eagerly at them. Hebegan to put a certain urgency into his applications for vacant posts,an urgency that helped him not at all. The applications grew longerand longer until they ran to four sheets of note-paper--a pennyworthin fact. "I can assure you," he would write, "that you will find me aloyal and devoted assistant." Much in that strain. Dunkerley pointedout that Bonover's testimonial ignored the question of moral characterand discipline in a marked manner, and Bonover refused to alter it. Hewas willing to do what he could to help Lewisham, in spite of the wayhe had been treated, but unfortunately his conscience....
Once or twice Lewisham misquoted the testimonial--to no purpose. AndMay was halfway through, and South Kensington was silent. The futurewas grey.
And in the depths of his doubt and disappointment came her letter. Itwas typewritten on thin paper. "Dear," she wrote simply, and itseemed to him the most sweet and wonderful of all possible modes ofaddress, though as a matter of fact it was because she had forgottenhis Christian name and afterwards forgotten the blank she had left forit.
"Dear, I could not write before because I have no room at home nowwhere I can write a letter, and Mrs. Frobisher told my motherfalsehoods about you. My mother has surprised me dreadfully--I did notthink it of her. She told me nothing. But of that I must tell you inanother letter. I am too angry to write about it now. Even now youcannot write back, for _you must not send letters here_. It would_never_ do. But I think of you, dear,"--the "dear" had been erased andrewritten--"and I must write and tell you so, and of that nice walk wehad, if I never write again. I am very busy now. My work is ratherdifficult and I am afraid I am a little stupid. It is hard to beinterested in anything just because that is how you have to live, isit not? I daresay you sometimes feel the same of school. But Isuppose everybody is doing things they don't like. I don't know whenI shall come to Whortley again, if ever, but very likely you will becoming to London. Mrs. Frobisher said the most horrid things. Itwould be nice If you could come to London, because then perhaps youmight see me. There is a big boys' school at Chelsea, and when I go byit every morning I wish you were there. Then you would come out inyour cap and gown as I went by. Suppose some day I was to see youthere suddenly!!"
So it ran, with singularly little information in it, and ended quiteabruptly, "Good-bye, dear. Good-bye, dear," scribbled in pencil. Andthen, "Think of me sometimes."
Reading it, and especially that opening "dear," made Lewisham feel thestrangest sensation in his throat and chest, almost as though he wasgoing to cry. So he laughed instead and read it again, and went to andfro in his little room with his eyes bright and that precious writingheld in his hand. That "dear" was just as if she had spoken--a voicesuddenly heard. He thought of her farewell, clear and sweet, out ofthe shadow of the moonlit house.
But why that "If I never write again," and that abrupt ending? Ofcourse he would think of her.
It was her only letter. In a little time its creases were wornthrough.
Early in June came a loneliness that suddenly changed into almostintolerable longing to see her. He had vague dreams of going toLondon, to Clapham to find her. But you do not find people in Claphamas you do in Whortley. He spent an afternoon writing and re-writing alengthy letter, against the day when her address should come. If itwas to come. He prowled about the village disconsolately, and at lastset off about seven and retraced by moonlight almost every step ofthat one memorable walk of theirs.
In the blackness of the shed he worked himself up to the pitch oftalking as if she were present. And he said some fine brave things.
He found the little old lady of the wallflowers with a candle in herwindow, and drank a bottle of ginger beer with a sacramental air. Thelittle old lady asked him, a trifle archly, after his sister, and hepromised to bring her again some day. "I'll certainly bring her," hesaid. Talking to the little old lady somehow blunted his sense ofdesolation. And then home through the white indistinctness in a stateof melancholy that became at last so fine as to be almost pleasurable.
The day after that mood a new "text" attracted and perplexedMrs. Munday, an inscription at once mysterious and familiar, and thisinscription was:
Mizpah.
It was in Old English lettering and evidently very carefully executed.
Where had she seen it before?
It quite dominated all the rest of the room at first, it flaunted likea flag of triumph over "discipline" and the time-table and theSchema. Once indeed it was taken down, but the day after itreappeared. Later a list of scholastic vacancies partially obscuredit, and some pencil memoranda were written on the margin.
And when at last the time came for him to pack up and leave Whortley,he took it down and used it with several other suitable papers--theSchema and the time-table were its next-door neighbours--to line thebottom of the yellow box in which he packed his books: chiefly booksfor that matriculation that had now to be postponed.
