The Loom of Youth

by Alec Waugh

  Sullen and silent, the House side trooped up to tea. They had won the match, of that there was no doubt. And they had been done out of their victory.

  The limit was reached when, muddy and cold, they found that the new boot-boy had forgotten to heat the boiler, and there was only cold water to wash in.

  The changing-room was filled with the sound of oaths and curses.

  But when the effects of Princeford’s refereeing and the boot-boy’s forgetfulness had worn off slightly, the House felt more content. After all, they had not been beaten. They had got the cup for half the year at any rate. Things might be worse. And when in hall that night Hazelton gave him his House cap, all Gordon’s rage was overwhelmed by the feeling that his dearest object had been achieved. The boot-boy was forgiven; Princeford faded into the background of insignificance from which he had temporarily emerged.

  But the matter did not end there: other fingers were itching to be in the pie. Christy and Rogers, walking up from the field together, came to the conclusion that that incorrigible nuisance Caruthers had disgraced Fernhurst football. Princeford was a master from Sedbury; he had only come for one term as a special concession, because his headmaster was a great friend of the Chief. What sort of an impression would he carry away of Fernhurst manners and sportsmanship, if Caruthers should be allowed to go unpunished, not only for playing a deliberately foul game, but also for using most foul language? And so these two, neither of whom knew anything about football, while both were immensely aware of their own importance, made their way to “the Bull’s” study to pour out their grievances. “The Bull” was laid up with influenza, and had been prevented from watching the match. They found him lying on his sofa. For over an hour they elaborated the tale of Gordon’s misconduct.

  They pointed out that the object of house matches was to promote a keenness in school football, and to provide interest for those who were not good enough to get into the school team. The School House had for years during the Easter term isolated itself from the rest of the school. It had considered itself as apart, a school in itself. Such an attitude militated against esprit de corps; it made the house appear more important than the school. It led to bad feeling between houses. In Caruthers were developed all the worst faults of this system. His keenness for his house had so far drowned his affection for his school that he used any tactics to reach his end. He took defeat in an unsportsmanlike manner. This afternoon’s play had made this clear. And what was worst of all was that Caruthers had a sufficient personality to attract others. “Moths are always attracted by the flame,” said Rogers pompously. If Caruthers were dealt with effectively at once, this poisonous School House notion of its own importance would collapse. Was it going to be put an end to? That was the question they put to Mr Buller; and they took over an hour in putting it.

  “The Bull” listened to all they had to say, and as soon as they began repeating themselves, and he realised they had given all the information they could, told them he had now to dress for dinner, but that he would consider the matter carefully and let them know his opinion later on. Like two obsequious courtiers before an Eastern monarch, Rogers and Christy bowed themselves out, inarticulate with advice and last words.

  “The Bull” smiled. He was too big a man to be taken in by such obvious hypocrisy. These men amused him greatly, especially because they both thought he took them seriously. But, for all that, he saw that there was a good deal of truth in what they had said. He wished he had been at the game himself. It was so hard to form an estimate on the strength of partial onlookers. Princeford’s refereeing might have been exasperating; but, damn it, even if it had, a sportsman should not make a fuss about it! It was all part of the game. But Caruthers did not treat a House match as a game, but as the real business of life. That was what rankled. Caruthers would laugh when he dropped a catch in a Colts match, or missed his collar on the upper; but in a House match his face would be set, his eyes wide and eager. Humour had for the moment ceased to exist, as far as he was concerned. He clearly preferred his house to his school. Was he stirring up any feeling between the outhouses and the School House? He remembered an occasion terms back when Gordon in a House game had shouted out: “Let the swine have it.” Then, again, there was that affair of bribing Burgoyne to lay out one of his men. And then the incident this afternoon. Outwardly he was doing his very best to separate the interests of his house from those of the school, to split Fernhurst into two factions. But supposing, after all, these were merely outward signs, supposing Gordon’s excessive keenness, coupled with the rash hotheadedness of youth, led him where his cooler judgment would have checked him. If that were so, and if strong measures were taken, might not his keenness change into a hatred of Fernhurst, might it not lead him to open antagonism with the rest of the school? Punishment might merely inflame and not crush him, while if his feelings were only the natural effervescence of youth, they would wear down in time, and then all would be well. Yet he realised that it is the things which show that count in this world, a man is judged not by what he is, but by what he appears to be. Everything pointed to the belief that Gordon was working against the interests of Fernhurst; whether he actually meant to do so or not was immaterial. He had to be dealt with as if it was deliberate. It might be hard on him, but it was not the interests of the individual, but of the community, that had to be considered.

  “The Bull” sent for Akerman, the school captain, after chapel on Sunday morning.

  “Akerman, I want to speak to you about Caruther’s behaviour in the Two Cock yesterday afternoon. Of course, I did not see what happened, but from what I have heard I think measures ought to be taken. It is a serious matter. Light measures are no good. I know Caruthers; you have got to crush him, or he will laugh at you. I think what is required is a thrashing from the Games Committee. He is bound to be awed by the disapproval of a body representing Fernhurst football. I suppose now that the Games Committee wouldn’t raise any objection? What about Hazelton?”

  “Well, sir, Hazelton went to the matron last night, and they discovered he had got mumps. I just passed him on the way to the sanatorium.”

  “Um! That means there is no School House representative. There must be one. It would not do for it to appear a school thing, got up against a School House boy. It would only help to alienate the two parties still more. Let’s see, who is the next senior man in the School House?”

  “Pilcher, sir.”

  Pilcher was one of those people who, though quite efficient at everything—he was in the Upper Sixth—pass through the school without leaving any mark behind them. He was outside three-quarter, and was well worth his place in the side, but he was in no way a blood. He was never seen. He was always in his study. His was a blameless, uneventful career.

  “He won’t raise any objection, will he?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, sir.”

  Akerman had difficulty in not smiling.

  “Very well, then, you had better call a meeting of the Games Committee this afternoon and talk over the matter. If anyone makes a fuss, say I agree with it; and I expect it will be all right.”

  There was no need, however, for any recourse to the oracle. The Games Committee consisted of the captains of each house. None of them cared the least what happened to Caruthers; he was nothing to them. Pilcher supposed it was all right. The grand remonstrance was passed.

  On Monday at twelve-thirty Gordon was summoned by a fag to attend in the school library. The six members of the Games Committee sat around a circular table on which lay two canes. It all looked very impressive.

  Akerman rose. He began to read a speech off a piece of school paper. Gordon had wondered why he had been so very energetic in taking down notes during the Chief’s divinity lecture that morning. The speech went on. It was full of the inevitable platitudes about esprit de corps and a sportsmanlike spirit. Now and then Akerman stumbled, and had some difficulty in reading his own writing. If there had not hung over him the prospect of a very severe beating,
Gordon would have enjoyed himself thoroughly. Akerman was so pricelessly absurd. The rest looked painfully self-conscious. Why could not Akerman have learnt his speech? It was so bad that he could not imagine anyone having any difficulty in making it up as he went along. Akerman was afraid of expressing an opinion. He prefaced every remark with “Mr Buller says.” It gave a sense of security. The speech ended; everyone except Gordon was relieved.

  “Bend over there.”

  The beating was not so horrible an ordeal as he had expected. In the same spirit in which the outhouse captains had raised no objection, merely because they did not care in the least what happened to Gordon, so now they did not take any particular trouble to hurt him. The ordeal was rather a fiasco.

  A halting oration had led to an even tamer execution. As Gordon walked down the library steps he was painfully aware of having been the principal character in a scene of sustained bathos. The body that represented Fernhurst football had scarcely risen to the dignity of its trust.

  * * * * *

  And then a sudden wave of feeling swept over him; and he saw the horrible unfairness of the whole thing. It did not matter that Akerman had made himself utterly ludicrous, or that the rest of the Games Committee had been led to carry out a programme which they knew to be hypocritical. It was the spirit that mattered. And at the back of it all moved “the Bull” pulling the strings. In front of the School House porch, clearly, dispassionately, Gordon put his case.

  “I know when I play football I get a bit excited; I know my feet fly all over the place. They did that ever since I was a baby. I know I sometimes lose my temper. But I have been like that always. I have played the same game in the Thirds, and in the Colts, my first term and yesterday. But nobody said anything then. Do you remember the Milton match? I went a bit far then: I was fearfully ashamed of myself afterwards; I thought my play had been a disgrace to the school. But did ‘the Bull’ think so? Good Lord, no. He gave the side a jaw, and said that they were a disgrace to the school, with the exception of me! I played hard and all that, while the rest slacked and funked! I was singled out for praise in the roughest game I have ever played. And now what happens? The House begins to win its matches; ‘the Bull’ sees his house losing cup after cup. He and Akerman and the other fools think something must be done. So they wait for an opportunity and then give me a Games Committee beating, to try and frighten the rest of the House. They talked about my unsportsmanlike play. They did not mind when I played rough against Milton. Oh dear, no! But when they find their own dirty shins being hacked, they sit up and shriek. And they wait till Hazelton stops out, too!”

  Everyone agreed with him. From Dan to Beersheba there was but one opinion. Buller had not been playing the game. The authorities were against them. The House would have to cling together to protect its rights. They could not have Buller trampling on them, dictating terms. He had begun the contest; they would be prepared for him next time. An aura of antagonism overhung the grey studies. Members of Buller’s house were dealt with in the sweeping delineation of “the swine across the road.” For the rest of the term, every time Princeford passed the School House on his way to the common room, a whistle blew from the dark recesses of the studies, and some voice shouted: “No try; off-side!” “The Bull” himself was looked on with a general suspicion. The inevitable had happened. “The Bull” in his attempt to sacrifice the individual to the community had forgotten that the community is at the mercy of the individual. The world is composed of a number of individuals round whom parties and nations cling. “The Bull” had made an attack on the individual, and the community that Gordon represented took up his attitude of defiance, strengthening his resolve not to give way, to keep the House independent of the tyranny that drew five outhouses together as one. The House was not to be coerced. Its members would be free to think, to do, to speak as they thought best. From that moment Gordon took the interests of the House and not Fernhurst as the standard by which to judge all his thoughts and actions.

  And so it happened that just at this moment, when the House was bubbling over with suppressed wrath, a chance was given them of showing their independence and defiance.

  Chapter VII

  Rebellion

  On the Wednesday after the Games Committee’s activities in the library, Ferrers banged into Betteridge’s study, his arms laden with books. There was a Stoics meeting on the next Saturday, and the card drawn up at the beginning of the term announced that there would be a reading of Arms and the Man, by Bernard Shaw. But Ferrers, who was now president, never took any notice of the programme, which he invariably altered a day or two before the meeting. This imposed a considerable strain on those who had to get up fresh parts and prepare different speeches at a second’s notice. But as the alterations were nearly always an improvement no one minded.

  “Sorry, Betteridge—had to change Stoics’ thing. Just picked up this—Younger Generation, by Stanley Houghton—ordered fifteen copies from Sidgwick & Jackson—good publishers. Do you know them? I’ve marked our parts—here they are—no more time. Goodnight.”

  He was gone in a second. And the unfortunate secretary was left with the lot of distributing copies and drawing up fresh notices. It was just on lock-up, so there was no time to do anything till the next day. He settled himself down to read the play. In a very short while he was thoroughly engrossed; by the time he had reached the end of the first act he had no doubt that Saturday would witness the most successful meeting of the Stoics since the historic occasion when Macdonald and Rogers had been persuaded to speak on opposite sides on “Trade Unionism,” and Rogers had been most gloriously routed.

  Betteridge went in search of Tester and Gordon.

  “Come up to my study and read a play Ferrers has got hold of for the Stoics. It’s glorious stuff.”

  “All right,” said Gordon. “I will go and fetch Rudd.”

  “For God’s sake, don’t bring that outsider.”

  “Oh, hell, why not? He is quite respectable; and, after all, he is one of the best of our regular readers.”

  “All right then: fetch him along.”

  Since their scandalous ramble Gordon had become more or less friends with Rudd, and had to a large extent helped to make his life more bearable.

  The four sat silent, reading the play. There was occasionally a suppressed laugh: otherwise no one spoke at all.

  In under an hour they had all finished.

  “Jolly good,” said Gordon. “I do like seeing this younger generation up against the rotten conventions of the mid-Victorian era.”

  “Deal gently with them,” murmured Betteridge. “Their horsehair arm-chairs have stood the test of time very well.”

  “Too well: but their Puritan ideas are in the melting-pot now. Their day is over.”

  “You know I am not sure that the Stoics is the right audience for a play like this,” said Tester.

  “Good heavens, man,” protested Gordon, “you don’t think it would corrupt their morals, do you?”

  “Of course not, you ass! I don’t think they would understand it: that’s all. They will laugh at it, and think it funny. But they won’t really see what Houghton is driving at. They won’t understand that he is trying to cut away the shackles of mature thought that are impeding the limbs of youth. The lads in the Remove will be frightfully amused; they will think the father an awful old fool, and the son the devil of a rip. They won’t see that both of them are real characters, and that a hundred families today are working out their own little tragedy just on these very lines.”

  “But surely there are really no fathers quite so absurd as old Kennion. Does not Houghton exaggerate the type, as Dickens exaggerates all his types?”

  “Oh no, he’s real enough; I expect there are a good many like him living in Fernhurst now.”

  The truth of the last remark was brought home three days later.

  On the Friday before the debate Ferrers got a bad attack of influenza. There would be no one to take the chair. Moved by a
n instinct of courtesy, Ferrers wrote to Christy a little note, enclosing the book, and asking him to preside.

  On Saturday morning Christy went up to Betteridge in break.

  “Ah, Betteridge, Mr Ferrers has asked me to take the chair at the Stoics. Well, I myself would not be present when such a play was read. It is aimed at the very roots of domestic morality. It might do very well in a small circle of Senior boys. But it would have a very serious effect on young boys who are not as mature as you or I are. None of my house will attend; and, from a conversation I had with Mr Rogers and Mr Claremont, I am fairly certain they will not allow their houses to go either. It would be really much better to wait until Mr Ferrers is well again before anything is done. It would be quite easy to postpone the meeting, I suppose.”

  “Oh yes, sir, of course.”

  Betteridge was not paying much attention: he was thinking hard. The bell for school rang.

  “That will be all right then, Betteridge.”

  “Quite, thank you, sir.”

  Christy, bubbling with satisfaction, rushed off to tell the head of Buller’s that the meeting had been postponed. Things were turning out well for him. He had obtained the beating of Caruthers, and now he had most distinctly scored off Ferrers. He did not stop to think that both these campaigns had been carried on behind his enemy’s back.

  But in his moment of triumph over Ferrers he did not pause to think whether he had also triumphed over the School House spirit of antagonism which he himself had stirred up.

  During the half-hour between morning school and lunch, Betteridge, Tester and Gordon held a council of war.

  “Of course, whatever we do,” said Betteridge, “is bound to be in the nature of farce. Three houses, you see, won’t turn up at all, Abercrombie’s hardly ever sends anyone, and I don’t mind betting that Christy gets round ‘the Bull’ somehow.”