Guilty: The Lost Classic Novel

by Kavan, Anna

  I was in as black a mood as I’d ever known when I opened my mother’s letter. She seemed almost panic-stricken at the idea of leaving home – why, I couldn’t imagine; she had nothing to lose by the change. Her agitation annoyed me, for it seemed so pointless. And when she went on to say that my career would be ruined, bringing up all my own arguments, I felt she was only pretending to be concerned because she wanted my backing, being so disturbed on her own account. The one sensible suggestion the letter contained was that I should appeal to the Headmaster and get him to write to my father on my behalf. Of course, I couldn’t possibly go to the Head; but, all the same, it wasn’t a bad idea to get somebody to write.

  Long before this, I’d heard all about the famous speech in which the whole school had been warned against me, and I still felt the hostility of the speaker; indeed, he made no secret of it and always took care to avoid any contact with me. Not once had he spoken to me personally in all the time I’d been here or displayed the least interest in anything I did.

  My housemaster was the obvious person for me to consult; a good-natured, plodding, conscientious man, in no way remarkable, whose name I’ve even forgotten, though he was known as Jaggers among us. The events of the past had faded out of my memory, so that it was not till I was facing him at the interview I had requested that I recalled he was the very man who had witnessed my first encounter with the Head all those years ago. Now the details of the scene came back to me, but, humiliating as it had been for him, I was forced to refer to it when explaining how my father had gone away and left me in the lurch – I could only hope time had removed the sting from the insults he had received.

  But clearly they’d been rankling ever since, and, though I tried to placate him by attributing Mr Spector’s arrogant behaviour on that occasion to the effects of strain and the exhaustion of the long hours he had spent at the wheel, neglecting his work in the city to bring me here, taking over the duties my father had abandoned, he stopped me, exclaiming, ‘Stop! I won’t hear any more of this’, starting to pace the room in considerable agitation.

  He seemed to me quite absurdly upset; but what most dismayed me was his unmistakable antagonism, for which I could see no reason but the inevitable one, so that I blurted out reproachfully, ‘You always sympathize with other people’s troubles. But when I ask you to help me you get angry – you’re against me like everyone else. And this is so important to me – it means my whole future. I did think that for once …’ Ashamed of becoming emotional, I relapsed into silence. He seemed affected, even slightly embarrassed, by my outburst, for he stopped walking about and said in a more moderate tone, ‘I would gladly help you, if I could be sure of not ruining myself in the process.’

  I had expected him to contradict my statement that everyone was against me; but, though it surprised me that he let it pass, I was much more struck by his use of the word ‘ruin’, which sounded wildly extravagant in this context, almost suggestive of persecution mania. I’d often heard it said that old Jaggers had a screw loose. But when I thought of the Head’s vindictiveness towards me, a private vendetta carried on over the years by an elderly scholar against a defenceless boy under his protection, Jaggers’s fears seemed more justifiable, and I said impulsively, ‘Is the Head really such a tyrant? Would he really take it out on you for helping me? Why has he always hated me so much?’ I couldn’t have asked these questions of anyone else, and I regretted my impetuousness in asking them now, though their effect was far from any I could have foreseen.

  ‘The Head … ?’ Jaggers stared at me with a bewildered expression, which changed quickly to one of incredulous excitement as he seized my arm, dragging me over to the light, and tilted my face up to scrutinize it minutely, muttering under his breath, ‘Can it be true? Is it possible?’ and similar expressions of wondering disbelief.

  I never could stand being handled by people in this way, and Jaggers’s mystification and his whole conduct were so peculiar that I was growing convinced I’d made a mistake in confiding in him. So I said nothing but disengaged myself as unobtrusively as I could, not wanting to offend him.

  ‘And what about the authorities that sent you here?’

  I was quite unprepared for the question, rapped out in his stern classroom voice, and it startled me, by recalling the Head’s words, reviving suddenly my feeling of being exposed and somehow in need of special protection – a need which, since I’d reached the security of the sixth form, I’d almost forgotten.

  However, I answered coolly enough, I believe, that I’d always assumed the Head’s talk of authorities was meant to frighten ignorant little boys and that he might just as well have referred to the bogey-man. I smiled at the fantastic idea of important, powerful persons concerning themselves with my insignificant affairs; which left Jaggers no choice but to smile back. Pretending to believe I’d convinced him I was sincere, I began to thank him effusively, saying I was sure my father would be guided by his advice and experience both as a scholar and as a man of the world; flattery to which he succumbed, agreeing to write the letter, though he evidently had difficulty still in getting over his amazement, constantly interrupting himself with incredulous exclamations. ‘All these years … how could I not have known?’

  I was much relieved when the letter was finally finished. But, as I was leaving, he detained me at the door, giving me some very strange looks which I couldn’t interpret and seeming to want to say something more; though he thought better of it in the end, and we parted without any further talk.

  My father’s reply came a few days later, a coldly worded note, stating briefly that he’d cancelled the reservations previously made and would wait for my return to discuss things more fully. I gathered that he was going ahead with the business of getting our passports and other necessary documents, so that the project was only postponed in his mind. On the other hand, he hadn’t told the Head he would be taking me away at the end of the term; and I derived what comfort I could from this fact.

  Jaggers’s cooperation, seen retrospectively, didn’t seem very wholehearted; I was faintly ashamed of having made use of someone I really rather despised, and if I’d followed my inclinations I would have had no more contact with him. But, in common politeness, I had to show him the letter; and I couldn’t find any excuse for declining an invitation to tea. His teas, famous for their lavishness, were one source of the mild popularity he enjoyed, particularly among the juniors, and I remember this one because of the effort I made to disguise my lack of friendliness by a determined onslaught upon the cakes, scones, sandwiches, pastries and so on.

  Though Jaggers positively radiated goodwill, this, too, seemed of doubtful spontaneity. I had the idea he had first to overcome some sort of constraint or discomfort, even dislike; so that our feelings for one another were very likely mutual. He had merely glanced through my father’s note at the start without commenting on it. Presently he picked it up again from among the tea things and began to study it so minutely and for such a long time that (though I guessed he was only concealing the fact that his genial talk had run dry) I was impelled to ask what he thought of it.

  I hoped he might have noticed some encouraging point I had overlooked. But he only added to the discomfort I already felt on this score by saying my father had evidently been terribly disappointed and it must have been a great blow to him that I didn’t share his views. ‘He’s a good and brave man – even a great man; I’m certain of that.’ Jaggers spoke the unexpected words with defiance almost, looking me straight in the face, as if waiting for me to contradict him (which I was much too taken aback to do) and adding still more vehemently, ‘No one could have acted as he did without very great courage – heroic courage.’

  I was most disconcerted; but not too much so to notice that he flushed slightly as he spoke and afterwards fidgeted awkwardly with his cup, seeming to wish he hadn’t expressed himself so openly and emphatically before a critical – possibly even a hostile – listener.

  I’d made no great effort,
I had to admit, to overcome his distrust. But it caused me, all the same, to be overwhelmed once more by that frightening sense of being an outlaw, vulnerable beyond others, everyone’s hand against me. And though the feeling was momentary, it left an aftermath of depression; and, as soon as was decently possible, I excused myself and prepared to leave. Jaggers came to the door with me, keeping me there as before; this time he did succeed in saying something, though with a curious shyness, looking aside, as if speaking to someone else. ‘The greatest courage isn’t always found on the battlefield, you know.’ Observing him then, with his grizzled head and baggy grey tweeds, the gown he’d forgotten to take off hanging behind him like the dishevelled black wings of some great moulting bird, I dimly perceived that this mild, undistinguished, unprepossessing man knew a good deal about courage himself at first hand – which disconcerted me once again.

  Kind and friendly as he had been, he’d somehow put me on the defensive. I felt that he criticized my attitude towards my father and probably regretted having helped me reveal it to him. So, though he’d pressed me to drop in for a chat, I never did, only seeing him in public till the term was almost at an end.

  Prefects, naturally, were expected to set an example by being punctually in their places in Big Hall for the evening assembly. Jaggers’s house where I lived was further than the rest from the main building, and, as I never started till the bell was ringing, I always had a last-minute dash across the chess-garden to be on time. No flowers grew here among the rows of tall evergreens, immensely old and cunningly clipped in the shapes of chessmen, by which I’d been so impressed when I first arrived. Even now, after years have passed, their weird aspect, hard and solid-looking as if carved out of malachite, is the thing I remember most clearly about the school. Only one man in the whole country was expert enough to give them their yearly trim, and his family had held the hereditary office since time immemorial. When the sun was high, these arborial curiosities could resemble a grotesque company of medieval giants, with their attendant dwarf-shadows. Or an army of green invaders from an alien planet sometimes seemed to be marching in ordered formation across the lawn, where only masters and prefects were allowed to tread. All their transformations, however, as my first glimpse had showed me, possessed the common quality of malice, which infected the air around them, as if, throughout the centuries of their long lives, they’d been accumulating contempt and bitterness for their human creators, which found expression in this emanation. As a new boy, looking out of the dormitory, I used to tremble at the sight of these spectral shapes, all looking towards me. Obviously, they knew all my secrets; they despised me and regarded me with suspicion, always wanting to trick and harm me, enveloping me in their malevolent influence. Later on, as I grew more sure of myself, the trees bothered me less. But I always thought of them as personifying derision and hostility; and I still felt an unacknowledged antipathy towards them.

  On the summer’s day I’m describing, my mind was occupied solely by the need for haste, as I was even later than usual. Swinging around one of the great green towers at full speed, not expecting to meet anyone here, where all sounds were muffled by the soft turf and dense compact foliage with its strange medicinal smell, I collided with someone I almost sent flying before I could pull myself up. Grasping his arms to steady him, I saw that it was Jaggers and gasped a breathless, ‘Sorry, sir’, inwardly cursing the unlucky delay. At this moment the bell ceased to ring. In the ominous hush I became aware of my victim’s silence, then of his grey shocked face, which made me forget I was late and start asking anxious questions, afraid he’d been injured somehow by our collision. I felt, I remember, a curious pang of foreboding.

  Waving a sheet of paper he held in his hand, he waved away my inquiries and instead put a question of his own – a question so extraordinary that I could scarcely believe my ears, hearing him ask the sailing date of the ship on which my father had first intended to leave the country. Amazed, I told him it should have sailed over a week ago. Whereupon he nodded slowly, a look of extreme anguish overspreading his face, and muttering, ‘Yes, I thought so’, in the way of a man overwhelmed by guilt, so that he might have been saying, ‘Yes, it’s all my fault.’

  Though I had no idea what he meant, and was completely bewildered by the whole situation, for a moment he seemed to project his guilt on to me; as in a nightmare flashback I suddenly recalled with horror the guilty child whose imagination had once assumed responsibility for his father’s fate. ‘He’s too late now,’ I heard Jaggers murmur; but paid no attention to the words, too perturbed by his condition, convinced that he was wandering, temporarily out of his mind.

  I tried to lead him towards the entrance of the main building. But he resisted, violently threw off my hand and, thrusting upon me the page he carried, covered his face with his hands and to my consternation began shaking from head to foot as if silently sobbing. I was thankful to catch sight of one of the gardeners who must have been working late, to whom I shouted, telling him to get help at once.

  I’d noticed a seat at the edge of the topiarian chessboard and, thinking Jaggers would rest more comfortably there, tried to take his arm in order to lead him in that direction. But again he flung off my hand, which had barely touched his sleeve, as though it had been a repulsive snake. There was such violent loathing in this rejection that – though I knew how absurd it was to take offence at the actions of anyone in his state – I couldn’t help feeling hurt and made no further attempt to come near him.

  He continued to stand there, his face hidden, apparently oblivious of me; and I presently glanced down automatically at the paper he’d forced me to hold. It was badly crumpled, the print blurred and almost illegible; I stared at it for some moments before recognizing it as a single news-sheet, roughly printed by some emergency process, which gave the news of the first of the sequence of big explosions which, in such a short time, laid waste our principal cities and came to be known as the Eight Days War.

  In the confusion which followed immediately, a triviality like Jaggers’s breakdown passed unnoticed. He simply disappeared, as so many people inexplicably appeared or vanished at this time, and was forgotten. Everything was chaotic, for the transport, postal and other services were at once out of action. It was impossible for us to be sent home. And, in any case, most parents presumably preferred to know that their children were in a place of comparative safety, far from any important centre. This remoteness was our most valuable asset, of great value, not only in ensuring our immunity from attack but because it permitted us to go on functioning as a closed, self-sufficient community – as we were able to do with our large home farm – without being immediately overrun by hordes of demoralized homeless people from the big towns.

  These starving refugees from the shattered cities, many of them sick or with minds unhinged by suffering, flooding over the countryside in every direction, in lawless, leaderless, tragic mobs, were a problem as grave and were as much a cause of our country’s final capitulation, as the actual bombs. Fortunately for us, they took some time to reach our remote peninsula, and, indeed, only a trickle ever survived the journey.

  Whether the Head realized this danger on his own account or was warned of it by a higher authority, I don’t know; but, in any case, his ruthlessness now proved invaluable for our salvation. Where a more humane man would have wavered, he held relentlessly to the only course possible if any of us were to survive, stamping out sympathy, decreeing that every applicant for food or shelter be turned away and instituting the severest penalties for disobedience. Foreseeing the possibility of desperate wanderers trying to break in by force, the eldest among us were organized in patrols, whose duty was to keep constant watch from the outer boundary walls, which fortunately were high and in good condition. We had also to be on the alert for soft-hearted weaklings within our midst, who, despite the stringent measures taken to prevent it, might secretly have admitted some of these people, whom we were told to regard not as human beings but as a plague-spreading
menace, to be kept out at all costs. In the last resort, we were authorized to make use of the rifles of the Cadet Corps, for the issue of which I was responsible to some extent.

  It was a strange situation for boys of our age, and I recall quite clearly the curious atmosphere, which, in its febrile excitement, seemed to reflect the unnatural heat of that summer weather. Day after day of blazing windless sun terminated in an accumulation of thunderclouds and the oppressive threat of a storm which never broke. And this atmospheric pressure, working on our nerves, augmented the tension. It was August, high summer; but with us such a stretch of unbroken heat is extremely unusual, especially in conjunction with the absence of wind, which greatly facilitated the accuracy of the bombing, so that rumours circulated to the effect that the weather was controlled by our enemies to their advantage and which, to us in our ignorance, seemed fantastic then. But it was hard not to imagine all sorts of weird happenings in that unnatural heat, which seemed to breed rumours like fever germs. I suppose it was inevitable, since we didn’t even know whom we were fighting.

  Though our generation had grown up with the idea of war as a background to life, and had been familiar with war from the cradle, we’d also inherited some respect for the old tradition of chivalrous warfare. We were acquainted with the theory that wars should be fought by professional armies, recruited voluntarily; that battles shouldn’t involve civilians; that soldiers shouldn’t fire on the Red Cross or on prisoners of war. Certainly, we ourselves had no experience of this gentlemanly style of fighting, but in most of us, I believe, the respect for it lingered on as a deep-rooted inheritance. I don’t think a single one of us would, in a secret ballot, have voted for the slaughter of defenceless populations without means of retaliation, if only because this was against our schoolboy code of fair play. None of us had known this new modern type of bombardment, dependent for its success on the element of surprise, which automatically ruled out the old-fashioned declaration of war. Our country succumbed so quickly because it was the first to be taken by surprise in this way. We were the guinea-pigs of the world, which greatly profited by our experience; and we were hampered by being the last inheritors of the now obsolete idea of ‘honourable warfare’, unable to adjust ourselves fast enough to the new ideology.