The Loom of Youth

by Alec Waugh

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  Gordon wanted to institute a Van Hepworth memorial, and put up a plate to him somewhere. But there were many obstacles to this. The Chief might want to know more about him, and the legend had to be kept secret. In the end he contented himself with having the book bound in full morocco, so that it might be preserved for future generations, for already the cardboard cover had become sadly torn. Where Van Hepworth is now, who knows? This only is certain, that although he has most likely by now lost all clear recollection of Fernhurst and the grey School House studies, yet his name is remembered there today, with far greater veneration and respect than was ever paid to him during the days of his school career.

  “Let us now praise famous men,

  Men of little showing,

  For their work continueth,

  Deep and long continueth,

  Wide and far continueth, far beyond their knowing.”

  And so Gordon’s scholastic career came to an end. He had reached the “far border town.” There would be no need to fret himself about form orders any more. “Strong men might go by and pass o’er him”; he had retired from the fray. While others crammed their brains with obscure interpretations of AEschylus, he lay back reading English poetry and English prose, striving to get a clear hold of the forces that went to produce each movement, and incidentally doing himself far more good than he would have done by binding himself down to the classical regime, which trained boys to imitate, and not to strike out on their own. Gordon had already acquired enough of the taste and sense of form which the classics alone can provide, and which are essential to a real culture. But he was lucky in stopping soon enough to prevent himself being forced into a groove, from which he could only judge new movements by the Ciceronian standards, without grasping the fact that technique and form are merely outward coverings of genius, and not genius in themselves.

  To the other delights of this delightful term was added the sudden and unexpected success of Gordon’s cricket. For the first fortnight Gordon found himself playing on House and Colts games. But as he gathered runs there with ease, he was soon transplanted to the First Eleven nets, which he thenceforward only left for a brief spell, after an attack of chicken-pox. For a member of the School Eleven life has nothing better to offer than a summer term. There were usually two matches a week. The team would get off work at ten o’clock, and just as the school was pouring out in break they would stroll leisurely down to the cricket field. Everything, in fact, was carried out leisurely. A wonderful atmosphere of repose hangs over a cricket field in the morning, when the grass is still sparkling with dew, and there is silence and vast emptiness where usually is the sound of shouting and hurrying feet. There was the long luncheon interval, when the members of the Eleven would wander round the field arm in arm, or lounge on the seats lazy and contented. Gordon loved to sit in the pavilion balcony watching the white forms change across between the overs, the red ball bounce along the grass, the wicket-keeper whip off the bails, the umpire’s finger go up. The whole tableau was so unreal, so idealistic. Then the school would come down after lunch with rugs and cushions, and would clamour outside the tuck-shop for ices and ginger beer. Gordon could hardly connect his present existence with the past two years of doubts, uncertainties, wild excitements, hurry, bustle—never a second’s peace.

  One of his most perfect days was the Radley match. After a long journey, at the very end of the day they passed through Oxford, and Gordon caught one fleeting glimpse of those wonderful “dreaming spires,” rising golden in the dying sun. As the team walked up from Abingdon to the college, Tester, who had at last got into the side, came up and took Gordon’s arm.

  “You know, when I saw Oxford lying out there so peaceful and calm, I thought I had at last reached the end of searching. This was my first view of Oxford; by passing the certificate I didn’t need to go up for smalls. Thank God, I am going up there next term. I think I shall forget all my old misgivings in so completely peaceful an atmosphere. I can’t shake off the Public School ideas yet; I am all adrift; still, I think it will be all right there.”

  Gordon wondered indeed how anyone could fail to find all their dreams realised in so secluded, so monastic a Utopia.

  The next two days were supremely happy. Gordon, Lovelace and Foster were put into the same house; and they spent half the night ragging in their old light-hearted fashion. The match resembled most of the other performances of that year’s Eleven. The whole side was out for eighty. Gordon hit two fours and was then leg before; Lovelace, with laborious efforts and much use of his pads, made twenty-three and five leg byes. But it was a sorry performance, and Radley put up over two hundred. Fernhurst went in again; and that day Gordon and Lovelace were sent in first.

  It was an amazing performance. Gordon’s cricket was, in honest fact, one of the biggest frauds that had ever been inflicted on an opposing side. He had three shots—a cut, a slash shot past cover, and a drive that landed the ball anywhere from mid-wicket to over short-slip. People used to say that he tried each of these shots in rotation. That perhaps was hardly fair; but he invariably cut straight balls and pulled good length balls on the off stump to the on boundary. This evening, at any rate, he was in luck. With terrific violence he smote the Radley bowling all round the field. Some shots went along the ground, more fell just out of reach of a fielder. It was invigorating but hardly classic cricket. Still, whatever it was, it produced seventy-two runs, while Lovelace had scored three. After he left Lovelace became still more cautious. A man from Christy’s was in at the other end, who had been instructed to keep up his end for an hour. As a matter of fact, they scored exactly two runs between them in about half-an-hour. That two was from a drive from Lovelace past cover.

  At such daring Lovelace became much elated.

  “Come on, I say, come on. Lots of runs here. Come on.”

  The Radley men were very amused. Lovelace took nothing seriously. It was as well that “the Bull” was absent. Once, just as the bowler was rushing up to bowl, Lovelace flung out his hand and said: “Stop! Move the screen please; your hand is just behind a tree!”

  With great difficulty the screens were moved.

  Once he patted the ball a little way down the pitch, and shouted to the batsman at the other end, with hand extended: “Stay!”

  There was some subdued laughter.

  Lovelace turned round to the wicket-keeper and said: “Strange as it may seem, I am the worst member of this rotten side, and I am playing for my place. This is the way to keep your place at Fernhurst.”

  The final achievement was a successful appeal against the light.

  The next day it rained in torrents.

  “Jolly rotten luck,” said Lovelace, “and I was certain for a bat for making my fifty, too.”

  “Do you think so?” said Tester. “You know, they don’t play to a finish in England. You are thinking of Australian rules.”

  Commemoration came and went, with its tea-parties, parasols, calf-bound books, sermons and cricket match. The term drew to its close.

  “This is the best term I have ever had,” said Gordon. “By Jove, we have had some good days.”

  Yet, of all things, that which remained clearest in his memory was one day early in the term, when he and Lovelace were recovering from chicken-pox. The school had gone for a field day to Salisbury, and they were left behind with Archie Fletcher, who had been ragging Jenks, and had been kept back for punishment, and a quantity of small fry. No work was done. In the morning they all had to go into the big schoolroom and hear Claremont read Lycidas and parts of Comus.

  Claremont read remarkably well, and Gordon, in an atmosphere of genial tolerance and good humour, was able to get a clearer insight into the real soul of the pedant of the Lower Fifth. For, shorn of his trappings, Claremont was “a dear old fellow.” Among books he had found the lasting friendship and consolation that among his colleagues he had sought in vain. And as he read Comus, in many ways the most truly poetical poem in th
e English language, Gordon realised how sensitively Claremont’s heart was wrought upon by every breath of beauty.

  The afternoon they had to themselves. A net was put up on the field, and for an hour or so they beat about, regardless of science and footwork. A relaxation was a good thing now and again. Then they went back to the studies, and in the absence of its owner laid hold of the games study. They had the run of it now, and, with an enormous basket of strawberries before them, played tunes on the gramophone and roared the chorus. As the evening fell, and the lights began to wake, Gordon and Archie stole down to the fried fish shop, strictly out of bounds, and returned with an unsavoury, but none the less palatable, parcel of fried fish and chips.

  It was a glorious day; they enjoyed all Fernhurst’s privileges with its restrictions removed, and when the notes of Land of Hope and Glory proclaimed that the corps was marching up Cheap Street, they considered the return to realities to be almost an intrusion on their isolated peace.

  In the last week of the term the Colts played Downside, and Gordon was still young enough to play for them. “The Bull” went with them, and could not have been kinder. He walked round the ground with Gordon in the interval, as if there had been never any cause of quarrel between them at all. They talked of books as well as cricket; and though “the Bull’s” gods were not Gordon’s, there was real sympathy between them for an hour. On the way back in the train, Gordon wondered whether, after all, he had not been right at the beginning, when he promised to curb his personality, and merge it into “the Bull’s.” What good was there in going his own way, in righting for what he thought right? Buller always had had his own way, and things had gone on all right. Why should he try and alter things? Having realised “the Bull’s” faults, should he not make allowance for them, seeing that his virtues so outnumbered his failings? He was certainly intolerant of any other opinions but his own; but then so was Ferrers, whom Gordon worshipped on the other side of idolatry. The pity was that Ferrers was intolerant of the things he hated, while Buller was intolerant of the things he admired. It was all very difficult. For the moment he did not feel ready to come to any decision. He was too happy to trouble himself. “Sufficient for the day were the day’s evil things.” Let the future reveal itself. He would see how things turned out.

  The concert came, with its Valete of many memories. The school songs were howled out; hands crossed and swung in Auld Lang Syne; the Carmen nearly brought the roof down. Lying back in bed, Gordon saw little to regret in the school year that was just ending. Considering he had been second in the batting averages, he thought they might have given him his “Firsts”; but it did not matter very much. There was heaps of time. Three years of fulfilment. Half his school life was over. The threads of his youth had been unravelled at last; and in the coming year they would be woven upon the wonderful loom of youth, with its bright colours, its sunshine and its laughter. As the spring morn flings aside its winter raiment, so he had put off the garb of his wandering adolescence. He was prepared for whatever might come. But he was certain that it was only happiness that was waiting for him. Three years of success in which would be mingled the real poetry of existence. He would not write his poetry on paper; he would write it, as Herod had written it, in every action of his life. His innings was just about to begin.

  Book IV

  The Weaving

  “Alba Ligustra cadunt; vaccinia nigra leguntur.”

  VERGIL.

  “Life like an army I could hear advance

  Halting at fewer, fewer intervals.”

  HAROLD MONRO.

  Chapter I

  The Twilight of the Gods

  It is good to dream; but “Man proposes: God in His time disposes,” and Gordon’s dream was scattered at its dawn. Hardly a week later a great nation forgot its greatness, and Europe trembled on the brink of war. During those days of awful suspense, when it was uncertain whether England would enter into the contest or not, Gordon could hardly keep still with nervous excitement. When on the Sunday before Bank Holiday J.L. Garvin poured out his warning to the Liberal Government, it seemed for a moment as if they were going to back out.

  On the Tuesday Gordon went to the Oval; Lovelace major was playing against Surrey. In the Strand he ran into Ferrers.

  “Come on, sir I am just off to the Oval to see Lovelace’s brother bat. Great fellow! Captain of the House my first term.”

  “Right you are. Come on. There’s a bus!”

  For hours, or what seemed like hours, two painfully correct professionals pottered about, scoring by ones and twos. Gordon longed for them to get out. A catch was missed in the slips.

  “Surrey are the worst slip-fielding side in England,” announced Gordon fiercely. The Oval crowd, always so ferociously partisan, moved round him uneasily.

  At last a roar went up, as Hitch knocked the leg stump flying out of the ground. Then Lovelace came in. He looked just as he had looked on the green Fernhurst sward, only perhaps a little broader. He was wearing the magenta and black of the School House scarf. He was an amateur of the R.E. Foster type—wrist shots past cover, and an honest off-drive.

  A change came over the play at once. In his first over he hit two fours. There was a stir round the ground. His personality was as strong as ever.

  A boy ran on the field with a telegram for him.

  “I bet that means he has got to join his regiment,” said Gordon, “and it also means we are going to fight.”

  Lovelace shoved the telegram into his pocket, and went on batting just as if nothing had happened, just as if he did not realise that this was his last innings for a very long time. He hit all round the wicket.

  At last a brilliant piece of stumping sent him back to the pavilion amid a roar of cheering.

  “My word, Mr Ferrers, there goes the finest man Fernhurst has turned out since I have been there. And, my word, it will be a long time before we turn out another like him. There will be nothing to see now he has gone.”

  They wandered out into the Kennington Road, excited, feverish. They had lunch at Gatti’s, went into Potash and Perlmutter, and came out after the first act.

  “This is no time for German Jews,” said Ferrers, “let’s try the Hippodrome.”

  It was an expensive day. They rushed from one thing to another. The strain was intolerable. After supper they went to the West End Cinema, and there, just before closing-time, a film, in which everyone was falling into a dirty duck-pond for no ostensible reason, was suddenly stopped, and there appeared across the screen the flaming notice:

  ENGLAND HAS DECLARED WAR ON GERMANY

  GOD SAVE THE KING!

  There was dead silence for a moment. Then cheer upon cheer convulsed the house. The band struck up the National Anthem. The sequel to the tragedy of the duck-pond was never known.

  “Glorious! Glorious!” said Ferrers, as they staggered out into the cool night air. “A war is what we want. It will wake us up from sleeping; stir us into life; inflame our literature. There’s a real chance now of sweeping away the old outworn traditions. In a great fire they will all be burnt. Then we can build afresh. I wish I could go and fight. Damn my heart! To think of all the running it stood at Oxford; and then suddenly to give way. My doctor always tells me to be careful. If I could go, by God, I would have my shot at the bloody Germans; but still I’ll do something at Fernhurst. Stoics, you know; Army class English. How old are you? Sixteen! We shall have you for two years yet. This war is going to save England and everything! Glorious!”

  The flaring lights of Leicester Square, the tawdry brilliance of Piccadilly seemed to burst into one volcano of red splendour; a thousand cannons spitting flame; a thousand eyes bright with love of England. The swaying Tube swept Gordon home in a state of subconscious delirium to the starlit calm of Hampstead.

  Throughout the long summer holidays this feeling of rejoicing sustained Gordon’s heart. He saw an age rising out of these purging fires that would rival the Elizabethan. He saw a second Marlowe and a second Webs
ter. His soul was aflame with hope. He had no doubt as to the result. Even the long retreat from Mons, with its bitter list of casualties, failed to terrorise him. Half the holidays he spent in Wychtown, a little Somersetshire village, and his enthusiasm at one time took the form of buying bundles of newspapers, which he distributed at the cottages, so as to keep everyone in touch with the state of affairs. At one time he thought of going round discussing the war with some of the villagers; but he soon abandoned this project. He began with an aged man who had fought at Majuba.

  “Well, Mr Cavendish, and what do you think of the war this morning.”

  “Lor’ bless you, things beant what they were in my young days. At Majuba, now, we did things a bit different-like. But these ’ere Germans, now, they be getting on right well. Be they for us?”

  After this Gordon decided that the natural simplicity of the yokel was proof against anything he might have to say. He pitied electioneering agents.

  A week before the beginning of term he received two letters. The first was from Lovelace, who had got a nomination to Sandhurst, and would not return to school next term. The other was from Hunter, saying that he had won a commission in the Dorsets.

  “Well, Caruthers, old fellow,” he added, “this means that you will be captain of the House. I had greatly looked forward to being captain myself, and had thought out a good many new ideas. But of course all that has got to go now, and I don’t intend to try and pass off my theories on you;you’ll probably have many more than I had, and a good deal better ones. All 1 can say is that 1 wish the very best of luck to you and to the House. I have no doubt you 11 do jolly well. Good luck.”

  Gordon sat silent for a long while. Sorrow at losing Lovelace strove with the joy of reaching his heart’s desire so soon. Finally all other emotions were lost in the overflowing sense of relief that his days of waiting for achievement were over.