Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Oh, yes,” said David. “Gosh, I’m full. And I’m going to preach in dormitory, night-shirt and trousers for a stole. I can remember lots of the sermon.”

  “Oh, may I come?” asked Bags.

  “Right, but don’t be sarcastic and spoil the show. It’ll be in my cubicle.”

  “Rather not, “ said Bags, moving away. “May I be Goggles or Carrots?”

  “Sorry; Stone and Ferrets have bagged them. But you might blow the organ, and let it go out with a squeak, same as it did this evening.”

  “Oh, thanks; that’ll be ripping,” said Bags, beginning to practise squeaking in a realistic and organ-like manner.

  Now Bags’s mater was, as all the world knew, a Jewess. Bags had volunteered that information himself on his first day at school, adding loftily that she was of the tribe of Judah. This, if it was meant to be impressive, had singularly failed in its object, and the only consequence was that, for his first term or so, Bags had been the butt of various embarrassing questions as to whether he was allowed to eat sausages, or observed other Levitical injunctions. David, as a matter of fact, had not joined in these painful catechisms, holding that it wasn’t fair to consider a fellow responsible for his mater, but he had always secretly felt that this might account for there being something rather odd about Bags. For Bags had a retentive and vindictive memory, and was ever on the lookout to repay antique scores, though other people would have forgotten all about them. It was therefore not likely that he would have overlooked a scene so recent as this kick, and after Bags had gone, David said to himself that he was being “too infernally genial” — a jolly sounding word, which he had just learned — to deceive the wary. In fact, though Bags had definitely agreed that it should be pax, David was subconsciously a little suspicious of him, and this attitude was confirmed by Bags having said that that one beautiful kick had hardly touched him. It absolutely must have: there was no mistaking the quality of the touch. But he did not dwell on it much; should Bags prove to be bellicose still, in spite of the treaty, he felt the utmost confidence that he could deal with him.

  David woke next morning very early, with a sense of immense interest in things in general. It was still only the hour of faint and early dawn, and he lay quiet a little while, drawing his knees up to his chin, and clasping his legs with his bare arms in order to multiply the consciousness of limbs and body and life generally. Just behind him was the open window, through which the fresh breeze of morning came, coolly ruffling his hair, and on each side the varnished pitch-pine of the walls of his cubicle, gay with wonderful decoration. His face was turned to the partition close to his bed, and thus, the earliest object that his eye fell on was the school eleven cricket-cap which he had won last week, hung on a nail. On another nail beside it was his watch and chain, his father’s birthday present to him on attaining the immense age of thirteen, and on the same nail, though not conjoined with this jewellery, the mystic badge of the Smoking Club. A little farther on was another gift of his father’s, a small chromolithographie reproduction of the Sistine Madonna, by a “fellow” called Raphael, whose name somehow appealed to David, though the picture itself was “rather pi,” and close beside that a photograph of Carrots, exchanged for one of his in those happier days before she sneaked. Now, Carrots’s intelligent features were turned face to the wall, and David wondered whether she ought not to be deposed altogether. Anyhow, it had been Carrots who had asked him for his photograph, promising hers; the exchange had come from her side. Then there was a photograph of Ferrers Major, unframed, but tacked to the wall, and one of Hughes, David’s great friend, who had left a year before, and gone to Marchester, where David hoped to follow him at the Michaelmas term....

  Hughes was altogether godlike, and David adored him. Then came a small fretwork bracket, homemade in the holidays, with a sort of petticoat of crimson silk hanging round the edge of its shelf, on which was placed a small china lamb lying down among amazing flowers, which David assured his friends was “jolly valuable.”

  He cuddled his knees for a little while, contemplating these precious things, and forbearing to turn round and look the other way, because even more agreeable objects (with the exception perhaps of the photograph of Hughes) would meet his eyes there, and the zest for them was to be sharpened by abstention. To begin with, there was the chair which last night had made so perfect a pulpit, and even the sight of his trousers now lying on it, which last night had made so lovely a stole, would make him giggle again at the thought of his highly successful sermon. There also was the photograph of the two elevens in last week’s match, and, more precious still, a snapshot of himself standing at the wicket, which Ferrers’s sister had taken, had developed, and had sent to him the very next day. “Jolly cute of her,” thought David.

  He longed to turn round and assure himself by ocular evidence of the permanence of these things, but teasing himself, went on with his enumeration of them. There was his cricket-bat and one right-hand batting glove which he had bought second-hand. Most people did not rise to gloves at all; indeed, Stone’s glove was the only other one in the school, and for the moment the idea of staggering humanity by purchasing a left-hand glove also with Aunt Eleanor’s five shillings flashed across him. Probably nobody at Helmsworth had ever had two batting-gloves before; fancy being snapshotted with two gloves! Then there was a pill-box filled with the yellow dust from the cedar-cones in the grounds, which he had collected and labelled “Cedar-sulphur”; and, lastly, there was his washing-basin in which, ever ineffectually trying to climb up its slippery steep sides, were the Monarch of the Glen and his spouse. David could resist that no longer, rolled round in bed, and got up.

  “Good morning, Monarch,” he said politely.

  “How—” And then he stopped. There were two or three elm-leaves in the basin and a half-eaten strawberry, but otherwise it was empty. There was no Monarch, there was no wife.

  For the moment David could not believe it: he felt that they must be there, and that for some curious sleepy reason (although he was not sleepy) he could not see them. Again and again he turned over the leaves, and looked underneath the strawberry (as if the Monarch had been made little by his meal, like Alice in Wonderland), but there was no sign of them. Then he searched about his cubicle, scrutinising the varnished walls, examining the floor, searching in his blankets in case they had strayed there. And all the time he felt the futility of this, for he was convinced in his own mind that neither the Monarch nor his lady could have climbed the glazed ascent of the sides of the washing basin. Often had he watched them attempting to do so; even the gradual slope at the base was beyond the adhesive power of their feet, and as for the precipice of the sides themselves, they were hopelessly incapable of surmounting it. They could not get out themselves: some one must have —

  Then a sudden suspicion struck him, and he went softly and barefooted to the far end of the dormitory where Bags slept, and shook him awake. This had to be accomplished with silent caution, since no boy was allowed to leave his cubicle till the dressing-bell sounded.

  “I say, Bags, have you taken my stags?” he whispered. “If you tell me you have, and give them up, I swear I won’t do anything to you.”

  Bags sat up in bed and yawned heavily, to give himself time to think.

  “Do you really think I would touch those filthy crawlers?” he asked.

  “Doesn’t matter what I think, “ said David. “I want to know if you did.”

  Bags was considerably astounded by David’s having so instantly suspected him, considering that he had agreed to pax yesterday evening.

  “Well then, I didn’t,” he said. “So that’s flat. Where did you put them last night?”

  “In my basin,” said David.

  Suddenly Bags saw the stout figure of the matron in the ant e-room just outside the dormitory, while David, facing towards him, could not see her. If he could detain David in talk here for a minute, it was more than likely that she would hear voices, and find him out of his cubicle
, in which case she would certainly report him to the Head. He had not forgotten about the incident as they went into chapel last night, and the temptation was too strong.

  He laughed silently into his bed-clothes.

  “What are you laughing at?” said David, raising his voice. “What’s the blooming joke?” Bags did not answer, and David repeated his question. At that Bags saw that the matron had heard the talking, and was advancing in her felt slippers up the dormitory. She was already past David’s cubicle, and retreat was cut off. He sank back gently into bed. “Cave,” he whispered, “there’s Glanders coming! and stag-beetles can fly. Fancy not knowing that!”

  And he closed his eyes and sank apparently into a refreshing sleep.

  David turned round. Glanders was coming straight up the dormitory, and had already seen him. Since there was no hope of concealment, he went out to meet his fate.

  “Out of your cubicle before dressing-bell,” said Glanders bleakly. “I shall report you, Master Blaize. Not the first time, either.”

  David got back into bed again in a very different mood from that in which he had awoke half an hour ago. The week was beginning just about as badly as it could, and the sight of his cricket-cap and batting-glove failed to console him in the least, or bring back the sense of his happy awaking. He had two maps of the second missionary journey to make, he had to stop in between twelve and one, when he should have been practising at the nets, to learn his Catechism, the Monarch and his wife had vanished, and he was to be reported for being out of his cubicle before the dressing-bell sounded. That was a serious breach of school-discipline, and Glanders might have gone further when she so feelingly reminded him that this would not be “the first time either,” for it would not be the second either. On the last occasion the Head had told him precisely what would happen if it occurred again. The colours of the new cricket-cap had faded, the glove looked ridiculous, and the washing-basin was like the house of some one lately dead. He felt furious and exasperated against fate, and it was bitter to be reminded by Bags that stag-beetles could fly. In a general way he supposed he had known it too, but it had not occurred to him that the Monarch and his wife would dream of such a thing. Then there was a good fine caning to look forward to: it hurt hideously at the time, and you couldn’t hold a bat all day afterwards, because your hands were so sore. There was an awful legend, too, in the school that the Head had once broken a fellow’s finger, and who knew that he would not repeat that savage feat to-day? First one hand, then the other, and the same bruised and smarting hands again, just in the same place, and blood-blisters rising there....

  The dressing-bell sounded, and it was necessary to get up. It was just the sort of morning, too, that made a fellow wild with mysterious delight, if things were going well, but when things were black, it seemed an added insult that the sunlight and the sky were in such excellent spirits. There was the cricket-professional in the field outside, whistling as he put up the nets for practice, but there would be no practice for David to-day. Instead, from twelve to one he would be making maps and staring at the Catechism, and his hands would be tender and bruised and lumpy, and there were no stags to cater for....

  He went down to his bath feeling utterly wretched and dispirited, with that completeness of emotion that only children know, who are unable to look beyond the present and immediate future, the happiness or misery of which possesses them entirely. Other boys were splashing about and throwing sponges at each other, and he was hailed with the derisive taunts indicating general good spirits and friendliness.

  “Hullo, here’s Blazes. ‘What, reported again, Blaize! Don’t bully me, sir! The other hand, sir.’ Whack, whack!”

  “I say, Blazes, how’s the Monarch? Flown away, Bags says. Dirty vermin anyhow, so what’s the odds? Come and practise at No. 1 net at half past twelve with me and Ferrers.”

  David chucked his sponge into his bath and kicked off his slippers.

  “Can’t. Catechism to learn, thanks to Stone.”

  “Oh, yes, so you have. I expect you wouldn’t be able to hold a bat either. Never mind, buck up. All the same in a hundred years. Besides, Hughes was caned two mornings running last year, and he didn’t blub even at the second helping.”

  The goat-like Bags entered at this moment.

  “I say, rough luck,” he said to David. “I warned you as soon as I saw Glanders. Found the Monarch yet?”

  This was rather too much. David felt suddenly sure that Bags was at the bottom of all his misfortunes, and, already goaded by high-spirited sympathy, turned on him.

  “No, I haven’t,” he shouted; “and I’m jolly well going to search your cubicle. I believe you stole him. Look here, you chaps, I believe Bags took the Monarch, and I believe he saw Glanders coming when I was talking to him, and didn’t warn me.”

  Stone took his brown head out of the towel in which he had been rubbing it.

  “Why? What evidence?” he asked.

  “Unless you’re too blooming omniscient to want evidence, “ said Bags.

  “Because you’re a sneak. Because I jolly well hurt you last night, and you said I hadn’t to put me off the scent,” said David with a sudden inspiration. “Why, you’ve got a bruise as big as a football,” he cried, pointing to the injured part of Bags’s anatomy, “and yet you said it didn’t hurt. It must have hurt: it’s all rot to say it didn’t. And you said it was pax in order to put me off the look-out.”

  “Bosh: that’s not evidence,” said Ferrers, whose father was a K.C., and was much looked up to on points of school-law. “That’s only your blooming guess.”

  “Well, it would be evidence if I found the Monarch in his beastly cubicle, “ said David. “Or perhaps you’d say that stags can fly, and that the Monarch had only flown there.”

  This was sarcasm of the deepest dye, and produced its due effect on all the boys who, in various stages of undress, surrounded the two, except Stone, who never could understand what sarcasm meant.

  “Oh rot, Blazes,” said he. “At that rate the Monarch may have flown to my cubicle, but I’m not going to have you search it and turn everything upside down for the sake of a sickly stag-beetle.” The man of law considered the points.

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t make a challenge out of it, Blazes, “ he said, disregarding the obtuse Stone. “If you’re so certain of it, you can challenge Bags to allow you to search his cubicle, an’ if you don’t find the Monarch there, he gives you three cuts of the hardest with a racquet-handle and pax immediately afterwards.”

  David was standing in his bath, and, slipping, plumped down into it heaving out solid water.

  “Sorry, you fellows,” he said to those who were wettest. “Right then, I challenge.”

  Bags had moved away, in the general stampede caused by David’s plunge, and on the instant, with fresh suspicions teeming in his head, David jumped out, and got between him and the door of the big bath-room.

  “I say, Bags, you haven’t had your bath,” he said; “and were you going back without it? Aren’t you going to have a bath? Not feeling dirty? Anyhow, I challenge. Do you accept it?” Bags took off his dressing-gown.

  “Oh, you thought I was going back to dormitory to put them in your cubicle again, did you?” he said. “It just happens to be my bath there by the door.”

  “Well, but do you accept?” cried David, executing a sort of Indian war-dance round him.

  “No,” said Bags. “I don’t want to give you three with a racquet-handle, as we made it up last night. And I don’t want you turning everything upside down in my cubicle.”

  Ferrers put on his dressing-gown with the solemnity of a judge assuming the black-cap.

  “Then it simply proves the plaintiff’s case, if you won’t have your cubicle searched,” he said. “It’s all rot about your not wanting to whack Blazes because it was pax last night. He’s challenged you: it isn’t pax any longer. State of war!”

  Ferrers was in his element, and it seemed to the court generally even as
to him, that never at the Old Bailey had the net been woven in such impenetrable fashion round the most palpable criminal. Bags, too, felt that, but the net that really enmeshed him was of very different sort from what it appeared to be. Certainly he was in a hole, but not the hole that every one thought he was in.

  The majesty of the law proceeded.

  “If you don’t accept the challenge,” said Ferrers, “it proves you are guilty.”

  The plaintiff continued to dance.

  “I’ll let you give me six cuts, if I don’t find the Monarch in your cubicle,” he shouted. “You must be guilty, if you refuse six. Mustn’t he, Ferrers?”

  Ferrers tore his sock in trying to put it on to a wet foot.

  “Not for a cert,” he said. “Bags is beastly cunning. He may be running you up to a higher figure.”

  “Then I’ll let him have twelve cuts,” said David, feeling absolutely sure about it, “if I may search his cubicle and not find the Monarch. Oh, and search his dressing-gown, too,” he added quickly, conjecturing a perfectly demoniacal piece of cunning on the part of Bags.

  Bags stepped out of his bath with dignity, feeling there was no escape.

  “Then I accept Blazes’ challenge of three cuts,” he said, “just to show I didn’t want to run him up. If I did, I should take twelve.”

  “Done,” said David. “I’ll go and search at once; there’s another quarter of an hour before school. I may as well search his dressing-gown first. No, not there. Oh, blow! what shall I say if Glanders finds me in his cubicle again? I know: Bags is in the bath-room, and wants his liniment. If Glanders doesn’t think that likely, she can come and look at him.”

  Now Bags’s dilemma, the net in which he was really involved, was this. He had lain awake for two hours last night in savage anger with David, whom, in secret boyish fashion, he adored, and who had been so beastly to him. Open vengeance was out of the question, because, if it came to a fight, David was more than his match, and thus his revenge for that infernal kick must be done stealthily. Plan after plan suggested itself to him, but none were suitable until he thought of the very simple one of taking the Monarch and his wife, which, as he knew quite well, lived in David’s washing-basin at night. That was accomplished very easily, without disturbing their owner. But a few hours later he was awakened by David himself, who had conceived the revolting suspicion that Bags had done precisely what he had done.