The Loom of Youth

by Alec Waugh

  When the House learnt of this interview it raged furiously.

  “Confounded insolence calling it a farce,” said Foster. “And, after all, we stand a chance of winning. Heavens! we will boot them to blazes.”

  Everyone in the School House considered the idea of a change preposterous. Gordon alone realised that the present was an impossible state of affairs. Sixty-four against a hundred and twenty! They couldn’t hope to win more than once in six years. He pointed this out to Morcombe in second hall that evening.

  “As a matter of fact, if we win this year, I believe I shall go to ‘the Bull’ and offer to change it.”

  “But why?” said Morcombe. “There are times when I can’t understand you, and this is one of them. Surely, if we win, it is a proof that we are good enough to go on playing! Why stop then?”

  “Because, if we did win, it would be only once in a way. And I can’t bear to think of our giving in after a beating by seventy points. It is an anti-climax. I would much rather lay down our privilege willingly. That’s why I admire Sulla so much. At the very height of his power he laid it down, and went into a glorious retirement. His is the most dramatic exit in history. I should like the House to do that. We have taken on too big a thing. We have got to give in sooner or later.”

  “Perhaps so,” said Morcombe; “and I suppose ‘the Bull’ thinks you are thoroughly conceited and proud.”

  “I believe so,” said Gordon. “But let us talk about something else.”

  * * * * *

  As a whole the Easter term began far more satisfactorily than the Christmas term had ended.

  There were no “uppers.” House captains ran everything. Morgan had been promoted into the Lower Sixth, and Gordon found him a most entertaining person. Naturally clever and naturally indolent, Morgan’s work presented a strange contrast. He and Gordon would settle down to prepare OEdipus Tyrannus for Finnemore. They would begin lethargically. After ten lines Morgan would ask whether they had done enough; Gordon would fling a book at his head; somehow or other they would slop through thirty lines. Then Morgan would shut his book, and refuse to do any more.

  “Thirty lines is enough for Finnemore, and, besides, I feel rather slack tonight.”

  Gordon did not take the trouble to point out that the same feeling of slackness overcame him every night.

  They would both pull up their chairs in front of the fire, and waste the rest of hall talking. The next morning, however, Gordon would discover that the lines they had prepared the night before conveyed no meaning to him at all. He would curse Morgan, and then go up to the library, rout out Jebbs’ translation, and prepare the Greek. Then he would move across to school with the contented feeling of work well done.

  Morgan would be put on to con. Gordon would wait, laughing to himself. He was sure Morgan would make an awful mess of things. But somehow or other Morgan always managed to translate it correctly, if not stylishly.

  “Morgan, you did that again when I wasn’t there,” Gordon would say afterwards.

  “Oh no; we prepared it pretty well last night for a change.”

  After a while Gordon got used to this apparent miracle; but he himself had invariably to consult the English authority. He did not tell Morgan that. The climax was reached when Finnemore, who liked Gordon and thought him rather clever, wrote in Morgan’s report: “He relies rather too much on Caruther’s help for his Sophocles translation.” It was an interpretation that had occurred to neither.

  Chapter IV

  The Dawn of Nothing

  Slowly the Easter term moved on. As the days went by the sense of failure, which had overhung everything Gordon had done the term before, returned with an increased poignancy. The Thirds ended in a defeat which was rendered no more pleasant by the fact that it was inevitable. No one expected the House to win. The defeat was no reflection on Gordon’s leadership. The Chief, in fact, said to him: “We were much too small a side, Caruthers, but I think we put up a plucky fight. You haven’t anything to grumble at. We did much better than I expected.”

  But Gordon was always too prone to judge by results. He contrasted the game with last year’s triumphs, and with the glorious defeat of the year before, which had brought more honour than many victories. It was very different from what he had hoped for. There would not be much to remember his captaincy by.

  One morning towards the middle of February he was glancing down the casualty list, when he saw Jeffries’s name among those killed. He put the paper down, and walked very quietly across to his study. Jeffries was well out of it, perhaps; but still Gordon wished he could have seen him once more. That last terrible scene in Study 16 rose before his eyes. He could almost hear the bang of the Chief’s door. And now Jeffries was dead; and no one would care. A master, perhaps, might notice his name and say: “Just as well; he would have made a mess of his life.” They had never known Jeffries.

  “You look rather upset this morning,” murmured Morgan from a corner of the room. Gordon had not noticed him.

  “I am rather; a chap who had a study with me . . . Jeffries . . . he is in the casualty list this morning.”

  “A.R. Jeffries?”

  “Yes. But you didn’t know him, did you?”

  “Oh no; but I saw his photo in a winning Thirds group.”

  “Yes, that would be him. He was a fine forward.”

  Gordon was glad to think that that was what his friend was remembered for. Only the good remained. It was as Jeffries would have wished . . .

  The Two Cock drew near. There had been a good chance of winning once, but influenza had played havoc with the side. Gordon told them they were going to win, encouraged them, presented a smiling face, but his heart was heavy. He saw another cup going to join the silver regiment on the Buller’s sideboard. He had never found life quite so hard before; only Morgan’s unshatterable optimism, Ferrer’s volcanic energy, and his own friendship for Morcombe made things bearable at all. And yet he had all the things he had once wanted. Now Betteridge had left, he was indisputably the big man in the House. Rudd was a broken reed. At last he began to see that the mere trappings of power might deceive the world, but not their wearer.

  A week before the Two Cock Tester paid an unexpected week-end visit. He was full of vitality and exuberance. He was just the same, debonair, light-hearted, thoroughly happy. Everyone was pleased to see him; he was pleased to see everyone. He was almost hilarious. But as Gordon watched him carefully, his mirth seemed like that of Byron in Don Juan, laughter through his tears. The others did not notice, because they had never known Tester.

  Just after prayers he met Tester on his way back from supper with the Chief.

  “Hullo! I have been looking for you,” he said; “come for a stroll round the courts.”

  “Well,” said Tester, as soon as they were out of earshot, “what do you make of it?”

  “Pretty awful.”

  “Yes, I suppose you have seen a good many ideals go tumbling down. All our generation has been sacrificed; of course it is inevitable. But it is rather hard. The older men have seen some of their hopes realised; we shall see none. I don’t know when this war will end; not just yet, I think. But whenever it does, just as far as we are concerned the days of roses will be over. For the time being art and literature are dead. Look at the rotten stuff that’s being written today. At the beginning we were deceived by the tinsel of war; Romance dies hard. But we know now. We’ve done with fairy tales. There is nothing glorious in war, no good can come of it. It’s bloody, utterly bloody. I know it’s inevitable, but that’s no excuse. So are rape, theft, murder. It’s a bloody business. Oh, Caruthers, my boy, the world will be jolly Philistine the next few years. Commercialism will be made a god.”

  “Do you mean there is going to be nothing for us after the war?” said Gordon.

  “Not for you or me; for the masses, perhaps. No one can go through this without having his senses dulled, his individuality knocked out of him. It will take at least twenty years to recover what
we have lost, and there won’t be much fire left in you and me by then. Oh, I can tell you I am frightened of what’s coming after. I can’t face it. Of course there may be a great revival some day. Do you remember what Rupert Brooke said in Second Best about there waiting for the ‘great unborn some white tremendous daybreak’? That’s what may happen. But our generation will have been sacrificed for it. I suppose we should not grumble. But we only live once. Do you remember that day of the Radley match, and what I said about Oxford? I longed for Oxford. I wanted to begin life over again, to sweep out the past. I was beginning to realise what beauty meant. And then down comes the war. And I don’t suppose I shall ever have a chance now. I don’t know whether there is an after life or not, but if there is, I shall cut a pretty sorry figure, if there is going to be a judgment. Well, it is my own fault. I put things off too late. But I should have been a different chap, I think, if—”

  Foster’s voice rang out across the night:

  “Come on, you two. What are you doing out there? The coffee’s boiling over. Buck up.”

  “Right you are.”

  In a second Tester had resumed his old pose of indifference. He played his part through thoroughly; no one, as he danced with Collins up and down the narrow study, would have associated him with the despairing philosopher of a few moments ago. Gordon looked at him in amazement. What a consummate actor he was! How successfully he kept his true character to himself.

  Early on the Sunday morning he went back to his regiment. Gordon walked down to the station with him.

  “I am going to the front in about a week, you know,” said Tester, as they were standing on the platform.

  “Good Lord! man, why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t want them all unburdening themselves to me . . . Here’s the train. Well, goodbye, Caruthers. Good luck.”

  “Thanks awfully; and mind you come back all right.”

  Tester smiled at him rather sadly.

  “I am not coming back,” he said.

  * * * * *

  The Two Cock came and went. The score was not very high against the House. But it was a poor game. The school deserved to win, because they played less badly than the House. But there was very little life in the game. This may have been due to a heavy field day two days before; but whatever it was, the result was pitiable. Gordon had almost ceased to expect anything. Day followed day. Everyone was discontented; even Ferrers began to doubt whether the war was having such a good effect on the Public Schools after all. He said as much in an article in The Country. He was always saying things in The Country. It was his clearing ground.

  The Three Cock drew near. And each day Gordon began to think the House less likely to win. He had watched the outhouses play, and knew how good they were. One afternoon the Buller’s captain challenged the House to a friendly game. A very hard game resulted in a draw. There was nothing to choose between the sides. And in the Three Cock Buller’s would have Claremont’s and Rogers’s to help them.

  There were discussions in the House as to whether the score would be kept under twenty. Someone suggested it would have been a much better game if they had accepted “the Bull’s” offer of playing two houses instead of three. When the day came the outhouse bloods were confidently laying three to one on their chances of running up a score of over thirty.

  As Gordon sat in his study after lunch, before going down to change, he found it hard to believe that this was actually the day that he and his friends had looked forward to for so long. It was to have marked the start of a new era of School House greatness. It was to have been the beginning of the new epoch. With a slightly cynical smile he compared it with the way in which the Germans had toasted “Der Tag!” Both results would be much the same. Lethargically he got up, put a coal or two on the fire, and went down to change.

  The game followed much the same course that other Three Cocks had followed during the last four years. For the first half the House did fairly well, and kept the score down to thirteen to nil. Collins played magnificently; Morgan was in form; Gordon himself was not conspicuous. Then came the second half, when the light School House pack grew tired, and was pushed about all over the field. The cheering of tries grew desultory, and unenthusiastic. The final score was forty-seven to nil.

  “You know, Caruthers,” said Collins on the way up from the field, “we should have done better to have only taken on two houses.”

  “Yes,” said Gordon shortly.

  As soon as he had changed, he went over to “the Bull’s” study. He had already decided that it would be better to alter the condition of the match once and for all. It meant to him the complete failure of all his plans. He had set out to lead the House to victory. In the end not only had he retired, he had actually surrendered.

  “The Bull” received him kindly.

  “Ah, come round about the match, Caruthers?”

  “Yes, sir. I think we had better play a Two Cock in future. Three houses are a good deal more than we can take on.”

  “Well, of course, I had seen that all along,” said “the Bull.” “It is too much. The conditions are so changed. Of course, we can’t do this without the consent of the Games Committee. I think we had better have a meeting tomorrow afternoon. You might tell the others, will you?”

  On the next day after lunch the Games Committee met in “the Bull’s” study. “The Bull” stood with his back to the fireplace.

  “As you know, I have called you here this afternoon about the Three Cock. Of course conditions have so changed that it would be no reflection on the School House—”

  “The Bull” went on. Gordon sat forward on the sofa listening subconsciously. Scenes rose before his mind. Of Mansell two years back, after Richard’s Thirds, saying: “Wait till 1915.” Of Hazelton in the dormitory saying: “Our day’s coming, and you’ll see it, Caruthers.” Everyone had expected this year to a triumph. And here he was signing the death warrant of School House football.

  “The Bull” had finished speaking. . . A resolution was passed . . .

  “It is a lovely day,” said “the Bull,” “and I don’t want to keep you in. I expect you all want to be out doing something.”

  Gordon got out of the study somehow or other.

  One of the Games Committee came up to him.

  “Jolly good idea of ‘the Bull’s,’ I think. It was much too big a job for you. Much better arrangement.”

  “Oh, much.”

  Gordon went back to the old games study, the very walls of which seemed eloquent with voices of the dead. The rest of the House had gone for a run. He was all alone. His head fell forward on his hands. The captaincy he had tried so hard to gain had ended in pitiable failure. It was the desolation, the utter desolation! . . .

  Of all that he had worked for during those four years nothing remained, nothing.

  And as Gordon’s mind dwelt on this the love of the monastic life which had so overwhelmed him the holidays before swept over him again with renewed vigour. In the Roman Church at any rate was there not something permanent? Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. . . That boast was surely not in vain. He longed to surrender himself completely, to fling away his own aims and inclinations, and abandon himself to a life of quiet devotion safe from the world. It was the natural reaction. He had been tossed on the waters of trouble and had grown weary of strife. In Plato’s Republic Ulysses asked for the life of a private individual free from care. “After battle sleep is best. After noise, tranquillity.” Dowson’s exquisite lines on the Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration came back to him:

  “They saw the glory of the world displayed,

  They saw the bitter of it and the sweet.

  They knew the roses of the world would fade

  And be trod under by the hurrying feet.

  Therefore they rather put away desire. . .”

  That was what he wanted, to merge himself into the great silent poetry of the Catholic life. The Protestant creed could never give
him what he wanted. There was too much tolerance, too much sheltering of the individuality; he wanted a complete, an utter surrender. He passed the entire holidays in the world of ideas; he read nothing but poetry, or what dealt with poetry. He tried to recapture the wonderful full-blooded enjoyment of that last summer term. But for all that he found material thoughts stealing in on his most sacred moments. A chance phrase, a word even, and there would suddenly rise before him the spectre of his own failure. And he was forced to realise that as yet he was unfit to lay down the imperious burden of his own personality. The hold of life was too strong. He still wanted the praise of the populace, “the triumph and the roses and the wine.”

  Well, there was one more term; let him make the most of the roses while he could. In this state of indecision he returned for what was to be his last term.

  * * * * *

  A big programme of First Eleven matches had been arranged; and the first game was at Downside on the second Saturday of the term. Fernhurst won with ease, and Gordon knocked up forty-two. The match was over before tea; and, as the side had not to go back till six o’clock, they spent the interval in walking round the grounds.

  Few schools are situated in more perfect surroundings than Downside. There are wide gardens and flowery walks. Rhododendrons were flaming red and white, a hedge of gorse shone gold. It was a Roman Catholic school, and now and then a noble Calvary rose out of the flowers. The Abbey watched over the place. Monks in long black robes moved about slowly, magisterially. Gordon went up to one of them and spoke to him shyly.

  “A wonderful place this, sir.”

  “Yes; it is the right sort of place to train a boy in. Surround him with beautiful things, make a real perception of beauty the beacon light of his life, when he is young, and he will be safe. For there are so many things that are beautiful and poisonous like iridescent fungi, and it is so hard to differentiate between the true and the false. But everything here is so pure and unworldly that I think we manage to show our boys what is the highest. We fail at times, but on the whole we succeed.”