The Loom of Youth

by Alec Waugh

  For the Chief Gordon always worked; not, it is true, with any real measure of success, for he had rather got out of the habit of grinding at the classics, but at any rate with energy. And during these hours he began to perceive vaguely what a clear-sighted, unprejudiced mind the Chief had. To the boy in the Fourth and Fifth forms any headmaster must appear not so much a living person as the emblem of authority, the final dispenser of justice, the hard, analytical sifter of evidence, “coldly sublime, intolerably just.” Gordon had always before looked on the Chief as a figurehead, who at times would unbend most surprisingly and become a man; on the cricket field, for example, when in a master’s match he had fielded cleanly a terrific cut at point, and played a sporting innings; at House suppers, and, most surprisingly of all, when a row was on, Gordon had been unable to understand him. He could not dissociate him from his conception of a headmaster—a sort of Mercury, a divine emissary of the gods, sent as a necessary infliction. Yet at times the Chief was intensely human, and when Gordon came under his immediate influence and caught a glimpse of his methods, he saw in a flash that at all times his headmaster was a generous, sympathetic nature, and that it was his own distorted view that had ever made him think otherwise. The Chief was so ready to appreciate a joke, so quick with an answer, so unassuming, so utterly the antithesis of any master he had met before.

  There were one or two incidents that stood out clearer than any others in Gordon’s memories of his Chief.

  At the very beginning of the term, before a start had been made on the term’s work, the Chief was talking about Horace’s life and characteristics.

  “Now, Tester,” he said, “if you were asked to sum up Horace’s outlook on life in a single phrase, what would you say?”

  Tester thought for a minute or so.

  “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” he hazarded.

  The form laughed. It seemed rather a daring generalisation. But the Chief’s answer came back pat:

  “Well, hardly that, Tester. Shall we say, Let us eat and drink, but not too much, or we shall have a stomach-ache tomorrow?”

  He had taken Tester’s quite erroneous estimate as a basis, and had exactly hit off Horace’s character.

  But the following incident more than any other brought home to Gordon how extraordinarily broadminded the Chief was. Carter was construing, and had made a most preposterous howler, it does not matter what. He had learnt the translation in the notes by heart, and quite failed to connect it verbatim with the Greek.

  “There now, you see how utterly absurd you are,” said the Chief. “You have not taken the trouble to look the words up in a dictionary. Just because you see what you think is a literal translation in the notes. There lies the fatal error of using cribs. Of course when I catch a boy in Shell or IV. A using one, I drop on him not only for slackness but dishonesty. The boy is taking an unfair advantage of the rest and getting promotion undeservedly. But in the Sixth Form you have got beyond that stage. We don’t worry much about marks here, so there is nothing immoral in using a crib. It is merely silly It tends to slack translation which in the end ruins scholarship. And by using the notes as you do, Carter, you are doing the same thing. You really must use more common-sense. Go on, please, Harding.”

  Gordon was amazed at such a broadminded view of cribbing. He had long since grown weary of preachers who talked about dishonesty, without seeming to draw a line between active dishonesty and passive slackness. The Chief realised that it was deliberate slackness that led to dishonesty, not dishonesty that was incidentally slack. The Chief must be a very wise man.

  Nevertheless his admiration of the Chief did not make him do any more work than was strictly necessary; and Gordon began to drift into a peaceful academic groove, where he did just enough work to pass unnoticed—neither good nor bad. He had grown tired of ragging. It was such an effort, especially when the call of football demanded of every ounce of energy. To drift downstream may spell mediocrity, but it also spells security, and, after all, there was little danger of Gordon becoming a mediocrity in other branches of school life. He was far too ambitious for that, but his ambitions were not academic. House politics and athletics were sufficient burdens for one man in one lifetime. “Other heights in other lives”; and Gordon believed in doing a few things well.

  It was more than lucky for Gordon’s future that this term he found himself a success on the football field. If he had not, he would probably have sought a prominent position in the eyes of the school by more doubtful paths; but as it was there was no need for him to plunge into wild escapades to get noticed. His football attracted quite enough attention. People spoke of his chances of getting into the Fifteen next year. The Milton match was his greatest triumph, mainly because the rest of the side did badly. Lovelace played back and made one or two fine runs when he got the ball, but as a whole the side played very half-heartedly. Burgoyne was off colour, and Collins’s excuse that he had been overworking lately did not save him from being kicked out of the side after the match. But Gordon, who had got his Colts’ badge on the morning of the match, and so was relieved of any anxieties about his place, played what he always said was his best game; so much so, in fact, that Buller after the match, said:

  “Rotten, absolutely rotten, with the exception of Caruthers, who played magnificently.”

  There was only one blot on his performance, and that, though everyone laughed about it, caused Gordon some regretful moments afterwards. Rightly or wrongly Gordon thought the opposite scrum half was not putting the ball in straight. Gordon told him what he thought of him. The scrum half called him “a bloody interfering bastard,” and told him to go to hell. The next time the scrum half got the ball Gordon flung him with unnecessary force, when he was already in touch, right into the ropes. And from then onwards the relations between Gordon and the scrum half were those of a scrapping match. Gordon came off best. He got a bruise on the left thigh, but no one could notice that, while his opponent had a bleeding nose and a cut lip. The school was amused, but Gordon overheard a Milton man say: “I don’t think much of the way these Fernhurst men play the game. Look at that tick of a forward there. Dirty swine!”

  After the game Gordon apologised to the half, and exchanged the usual compliments; but he could see that the rest of the Milton side were not at all pleased.

  He spoke to Mansell about it.

  “My dear man, don’t you worry. You played a jolly fine game this afternoon, and if you go on like that you are a cert, for your Firsts next year. You played a damned hard game.”

  “Yes; but it is rather a bad thing for the school, isn’t it, if we get a reputation for playing rough?”

  “But you weren’t playing foul, and Buller always tells us to go hard and play as rough as we like.”

  “Yes; but still—”

  He was not quite reassured, though everyone told him it was all right. However, if “the Bull” made no comment, it looked as if nothing could be wrong. As a matter of fact, “the Bull” had not noticed; and though Christy, in a fit of righteous indignation, poured out a long story to him, he only smiled.

  “Oh, well, I expect he got a bit excited. First time he had played footer for a school side . . . I was a bit fierce my first game for England. Don’t blame him. He’s a keen kid, and I am sure the other side did not mind.”

  Christy mumbled indistinctly. No one ever seemed to take much notice of what he said. That evening, however, he and Rogers, over a glass of port, agreed that Caruthers was a thoroughly objectionable young fellow who ought to be taken in hand, and with this Christian sentiment to inspire him Rogers went home to put a few finishing touches to his sermon for the next day.

  Chapter II

  Carnival

  The tradition of Pack Monday Fair at Fernhurst is almost as old as the School House studies. The legend, whether authenticated or not only Macdonald, the historian of Fernhurst, could say, was handed down from generation to generation. It was believed that, when the building of the Abbey was
finished, all the masons, glass-workers and artificers packed up their tools and paraded the town with music and song, celebrating the glory of their accomplished work. And from time immemorial the townspeople have celebrated the second Monday in October by assembling outside the Abbey at midnight, and ushering in a day of marketing and revelry by a procession through the town, beating tin cans and blowing upon posthorns. With the exception of this ritual, the day had become merely an ordinary fair. But there was no sleeping on that Sunday night, and for the whole week tantalising sounds of shrieking merry-go-rounds, of whistling tramcars and thundering switchbacks were borne across the night to disturb those who were trying to work in hall. It used to be the custom for the bloods to creep out at night and take part in the revels; but when the new Chief had come, four years before, he put a firm hand upon such abuses, and had even threatened to expel anyone he found in the act, a threat which he had carried out promptly by expelling the best half-back in the school a fortnight before the Dulbridge match; so that now only a few daring spirits stole out in the small hours of the night on the hazardous expedition. Those courageous souls were the objects of the deepest veneration among the smaller boys, who would whisper quietly of their doings in the upper dormitories when darkness lent a general security to the secrets that were being revealed.

  This term about three days before Pack Monday, Gordon, Mansell, Carter and a few others were engaged in their favourite hobby of shipping Rudd’s study. One chair had already gone the way of all old wood, and the table was in danger of following it, when Rudd suddenly burst out:

  “Oh, you think yourselves damned fine fellows, six of you against one!”

  A roar of laughter went up. It was the traditional complaint of all weaklings in school stories, and was singularly of the preparatory school type of defence.

  “Jolly brave, aren’t you? I’d like to see any one of you do anything that might get you into trouble. I don’t mind betting there’s not one of you that would dare to come out with me to the fair next Monday.”

  There was an awkward pause. The challenge was unconventional; and the Public School boy is not brought up to expect surprises. The only thing to do was to pass it off with a joke.

  Lovelace stepped into the breach.

  “Do you think any of us would go anywhere with a swine like you who does not wash? Dirty hog!”

  “Of course you would not; you are afraid.”

  At that point Gordon’s hatred of taking the second place, which had before led him into difficulties, once again asserted itself. “Damn it all,” he thought, “I am not going to be beaten by Rudd!”

  “Do you say we are all funks if we don’t go?”

  “Yes!”

  “All right then, damn you, I will go with you, just to show you that you are not the only person in this rotten school who’s fool enough to risk being bunked.”

  Rudd was taken aback. He had made the challenge out of bravado. He had regretted it instanly. In the same spirit Gordon had accepted the challenge; he also wished he had not the moment afterwards. But both saw that they would have to go through with it now.

  “Good man,” said Rudd, not to be outdone. “I wanted someone to go with me; rather lonely these little excursions without company.”

  He spoke with the air of one who spent every other night giving dinner-parties at the Eversham Tap.

  “Look here, now,” broke in Mansell, “don’t make bloody fools of yourselves. You will only get the sack if you are caught, and you probably will get caught; you are sure to do something silly. For God’s sake, don’t go. It’s not worth it. Really, not!”

  “Oh, shut up; don’t panic,” was Gordon’s scornful answer; “we are going to have a fine time, aren’t we, Rudd?”

  “Splendid,” said Rudd, who wanted to laugh; the whole situation was fraught with such a perfectly impossible irony.

  “Oh, do have some sense, man.” Lovelace was impatient with him. “What is the use of rushing about at midnight in slouch hats with a lot of silly, shrieking girls?”

  “You can’t understand, you live in the country. I am a Londoner. You want the true Cockney spirit that goes rolling drunk on Hampstead Heath on Easter Monday.”

  “Well, thank God, I do want it, then,” said Lovelace.

  Rumour flies round a house quickly. In hall several people came up and asked Gordon if it was true. They looked at him curiously with an expression in which surprise and admiration were curiously blended. The old love of notoriety swept over Gordon once more; he felt frightfully bucked with himself. What a devil of a fellow he was, to be sure. He went round the studies in hall, proclaiming his audacity.

  “I say, look here, old chap, you needn’t tell anyone, but I am going out to Pack Monday Fair; it will be some rag!”

  The sensation he caused was highly gratifying. By prayers all his friends and most of his acquaintances knew of it. Of course they would keep it secret. But Gordon knew well that by break next day it would be round the outhouses, and he looked forward to the number of questions he would get asked. To be the hero of an impending escapade was pleasant.

  “I say, Davenport,” he said in his dormitory that evening, “I am going out to the fair on Monday.”

  Davenport said nothing, and showed no sign of surprise. Gordon was disappointed.

  “Well, what do you think of it?” he said at last.

  “That you are a sillier ass than I thought you were,” said Davenport.

  And as Gordon lay thinking over everything in the dark, he came to the conclusion that Davenport was not so very far wrong after all.

  * * * * *

  Cold and nervous, Gordon waited for Rudd in the dark boot-hole under the Chief’s study on Pack Monday night just before twelve. In stockinged feet he had crept downstairs, opened the creaking door without making any appreciable noise, and then waited in the boot-room, which was filled with the odour of blacking and damp decay. There was a small window at the end of it, through which it was just possible to squeeze out on to the Chief’s front lawn. After that all was easy; anyone could clamber over the wall by the V. A green.

  There was the sound of feet on the stairs. It seemed to Gordon as if they were bound to wake the whole house. Rudd’s figure was framed black in the doorway.

  Silently they wormed their way through the window. The damp soil of a flower bed was cold under their feet; with his hand Rudd smoothed out the footprints.

  They stole down the silent cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them. The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up coat collars and drew their caps over their eyes.

  A minute later the glaring lights of the booths in Cheap Street engulfed them. They were jostled in the crowd. It was, after all, only Hampstead Heath on a small scale.

  “Walk up, walk up! All the fun of the fair! Buy a teazer! Buy a teazer! Buy a teazer! Tickle the girls! Walk up! Try your luck at the darts, sir; now then, sir, come on!”

  The confused roar was as music to Gordon’s soul. He had the Cockney love of a fair. The children of London are still true to the coster legends of the Old Kent Road.

  Gordon and Rudd did not stop long in Cheap Street. The real business was in the fair fields by Rogers’s house. This was only the outskirts.

  The next hour passed in a dream. Lights flared, rifles snapped at fugitive ping-pong balls leaping on cascades of water, swing-boats rose heavenwards, merry-go-rounds banged out rag-time choruses. Gordon let himself go. He and Rudd tried everything. After wasting half-a-crown on the cocoanuts, Rudd captured first go at the darts a wonderful vase decorated with the gilt legend, “A Present from Fernhurst,” and Gordon at the rifle range won a beautiful china shepherdess which held for days the admiration of the School House, until pining perhaps for its lover, which by no outlay of darts could Gordon secure, it became dislodged from the bracket and fell in pieces on the floor, to be swept away by Arthur, the school custos, into the perp
etual darkness of the dustbin.

  Weary at last, the pair sought the shelter of a small cafe, where they luxuriously sipped lemonade. Faces arose out of the night, passed by and faded out again. The sky was red with pleasure, the noise and shrieks grew louder and more insistent. There was a dance going on.

  “I say, Rudd, do you dance?”

  “No, not much.”

  “Well, look here, I can, a bit; at any rate I am going to have a bit of fun over there. Let us go on our own for a bit. Meet me here at a quarter to four.”

  “Right,” said Rudd, and continued sipping the lurid poison that called itself American cream soda, and was in reality merely a cheap illness.

  Gordon walked in the direction of the dancing. The grass had been cut quite short in a circle, and to the time of a broken band the town dandies were whirling round, flushed with excitement and the close proximity of a female form. “The Maenads and the Bassarids,” murmured Gordon to himself, and cursed his luck for not knowing any of the girls. Disconsolately he wandered across to the Bijou Theatre, a tumble-down hut where a huge crowd was jostling and shouting.

  He ran into something and half apologised.

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” a high-pitched voice shrieked excitedly.

  He turned round and saw the flushed face of a girl of about nineteen looking up at him. She was alone.

  “I say,” Gordon muttered nervously, “you look a bit lonely, come and have some ginger beer.”

  “Orl right. I don’t mind. Give us your arm!”

  They rolled off to a neighbouring stall, where Gordon stood his Juliet countless lemonades and chocolates. He felt very brave and grown-up, and thought contemptuously of Davenport in bed dreaming some fatuous dream, while he was engulfed in noise and colour. This was life. From the stall the two wandered to the swing-boats, and towering high above the tawdry glitter of the revel saw through the red mist the Abbey, austere and still, the School House dormitories stretching silent with suspended life, the class-rooms peopled with ghosts.