Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  If he had been able to choose, he would have selected no other ball than that. It was a half volley, clear of his off-stump, the very ball to smite at. He did so, and in the very moment of hitting he heard that he had mistimed it. Somehow or other he got right underneath it, and it soared and soared almost straight up in the air. As he ran, he knew the feverish clapping of one pair of hands, and his father’s voice shouting, “Well hit, well hit, David.”

  Then the ball was easily caught by cover-point, and David was sure that never till the end of his life would he be able to get over what had happened. He was out, first ball, off a simple half volley in the match of the year. Everybody, from Jessop downwards, would know and would despise him. And it was the boy whose father had made fifty for England who had caught him.

  It is falsely said that the serious troubles of life only begin when manhood is reached. There was never anything so grotesquely untrue. When manhood is reached, on the contrary, the apparently irremediable nature of most events almost ceases. The man, though bitterly disappointed in one direction, has the power of seeing that there are other directions; he knows also that, though he is acutely unhappy at the moment, his misery will be alleviated not only by his own efforts but by the mere passage of time. But to any boy whose keenness and enthusiasm promises well for the future, no such alleviation is possible. He has no knowledge of the healing power of time in these crucial years, no realisation that other opportunities will come; his misery, like his happiness, is exclusive of all other considerations. The moment to David was completely horrible: he was out on this monumental occasion without scoring, while his hopeless father, though with no sarcastic intention, had shouted “Well hit, David.” And there was this added sting in that simple phrase, that now every boy in the school would know what his Christian name was. For Christian names at Helmsworth were hidden secrets: if you liked a boy very much you might tell him what your Christian name was, but to have it publicly shouted out, so that every one knew, was quite horrible. And as he walked back to the pavilion the world contained no more for him than that he was out first ball, and that his name was David. All sorts of stories from the book of Kings, which, most unfortunately, was being read just now at morning chapel, would be treasured up against him. They would ask after Jesse, and as likely as not his stag-beetles would be known as Bathsheba and Uriah.

  The innings of the home-side proceeded disastrously. The whole team was out before lunch for seventy-two, and Eagles made twenty before the interval without loss of a wicket. David, at present, had not been put on to bowl, and was fielding deep, near where the Archdeacon was sitting talking to Goggles and Carrots, who were apparently instructing him about the disposition of the field, while the Archdeacon, in his manly way, deplored the fact that the wicket-keeper wore gloves and pads. Also he thought that boundaries were an effeminate institution; in his day everything had to be run out (“and a jolly lot of running you had to do,” thought David). But with optimistic hospitality, Helmsworth hoped that lunch would worry the batsmen, though Helmsworth howling apparently did not, and were assiduous in filling their visitors’ plates and glasses. David’s acquaintance of the morning, who had made fifteen out of the twenty runs already scored, proved himself as distinguished at table as he was at the wickets, and ate lobster-salad in perfectly incredible quantities.

  During the last fortnight, friendship had prospered, as David had thought probable, between Bags and himself, and Bags, who did not, so to speak, know a bat from a ball, and so was not called upon to defend the honour of Helmsworth, had a wise thought that day. He had been of the group that had listened retentively to the Archdeacon’s preposterous conversation, and had seen David’s inglorious and fruitless innings. Then came the wise thought: “it must be jolly difficult to play cricket if your pater is making an ass of himself,” and directly after lunch Bags proceeded to tempt the pater away from the field. He got hold of the key of chapel, listened with sycophantic interest to legends about the saints in the windows, and managed to inveigle him into a long stroll round the grounds. There was something heroic about this, for, though Bags could not play cricket, he wanted to watch it, and in especial to watch David. For when he was nice, he was, in Bags’s unspoken phrase, “such an awfully fetching chap. “ He had all that one boy admires in another: he was quick and ready of laughter, he was in the eleven, which was an attraction, he was very good-looking, which was another, and in point of fact, at that portentous moment when it was made matter of common knowledge that Blaize’s Christian name was David, Bags would have rather liked it if some one had proclaimed that his own name was Jonathan. But, as it was only George, it might as well remain a secret.

  Now David was a bowler of the type known as “wily.” In other words, he bowled balls apparently so slow and stupid and devoid of all merit that a batsman who did not know quite all about them felt insulted and tried to do impossible things with them. So, the score having risen to thirty without the loss of a wicket, Stone said, “Try an over this end, Blazes.”

  David had seen the departure of his father with Bags from the field, and felt enormously better. Another opportunity in a new direction, had come, and as he took up the ball his fingers tingled with possibilities. He had a few practice-balls, sauntering up to the crease, and pitching them slow and high without any spin. Then epical matters began.

  He took an enormous prancing run at top speed, and delivered a ball of surpassing slowness. Ward, who received it, suspected there was something funny about it (which there wasn’t), and, as it was clearly off the wicket, he left it alone. The next one was a slow, straight half-volley which he very properly hit for four; so also was the next, with which he did likewise. Then came the wile: David’s fourth ball, for which he did not take nearly so long a run, was considerably faster than the other two. Ward completely mistimed it, and was bowled. Off the last ball of his over, a really fast one, he caught and bowled the incomer.

  This was better, though still bad. Two wickets were down for thirty-eight, whereas none had been down for thirty. Then ensued an hour of tip-top excitement, at the end of which nine wickets were down for seventy, of which David had taken seven. As it was a one-day’s match, it was to he decided on the first innings, if there was not time for two, and at that rose-coloured moment David was probably the most popular person in Surrey.

  It was his over again. His first two balls each narrowly missed the wicket, the third was gently spooned into his hands, and he promptly dropped it. The fourth was hit for four, and Eagles had won by one wicket. With his next ball David captured the remaining wicket; but he had already lost the match for them by dropping the easiest catch ever seen.

  Two exultant batsmen and eleven miserable fielders went towards the pavilion. Stone, with spurious consolation, slipped his arm into David’s, as they walked.

  “By Jove, well bowled, Blazes,” he said. “You took eight wickets for about thirty. Jolly good for your average.”

  “Oh, blast my average,” said David. “As if I didn’t know I lost the match.”

  David’s comment was more in tune with the popular verdict than Stone’s. It was quite certain that Helmsworth would have won had not that ass Blazes (David Blazes) dropped the “pottiest” catch ever seen. Exactly as in the world afterwards, his achievement in having so nearly won the match for them by his bowling was entirely wiped out by his subsequent mistake. Criticism, in fact, had nothing to argue about; it was all so clear. And, as tea was in progress in the tent, Bags and the Archdeacon, in a state of high animation, appeared on the lurid scene. They were instructed as to the result.

  “Somebody caught you; you couldn’t catch him?” said David’s father playfully.

  “Yes, just that,” said David, wanting the earth to open... he could have caught that ball with his eyes shut....

  The Archdeacon found himself next Goggles, who had told him that morning the difference between point and short-leg.

  “I have been seeing the chapel-organ,” he said, “my y
oung friend Crabtree tells me you will play to-morrow. A noble instrument. And now we have returned to see some more cricket. I am afraid the Blaize family have not helped you much to-day, but to-morrow we will try again. David is in the choir, is he not? One of us in the choir, the other in the pulpit. Tea? Thank you, a cup of tea after the excitement of the match would not be amiss.”

  David felt as if he was being publicly insulted, though all that was really at fault was his father’s friendly adaptability. He had been markedly interested in cricket, when cricket was predominant, but, the excitement of that being over, he transferred his mind to the next engrossing topic, which was Sunday, when the Blaize family would make another effort. But he erred in not adapting himself to the age and outlook of those with whom he strove to identify himself, and in thinking that it was possible for a boy in the school eleven who had nearly won and then quite lost the match for his side to treat a tragedy like that lightly, or feel the smallest interest in pulpits or choirs.

  An hour of cricket succeeded tea, but, since it was impossible to arrive at a finished second innings, this was but a tepid performance, and, after the Eagles eleven had been speeded with cheers, in which David’s father joined with wavings of his curious hat, he turned to more serious concerns again, and took David off for a stroll in the grounds to have a paternal talk to him. There was comedy in some of these proceedings, for when they had put a hundred yards or so between them and the cricket-field, the Archdeacon took out a cigarette-case.

  “I should not like to be seen smoking,” he said, “by any of your companions, but I think we are unobserved now.”

  David nearly laughed, but managed not to. As luck would have it, his father had stopped on the very spot which was sacred to the meetings of the Smoking Club.

  “The Head smokes,” he said encouragingly. He saw, too, that his father’s brand of cigarettes was that preferred by the Smoking Club.

  Then ensued the serious talk. Cricket was commended in moderation, but as an amusement only, not as an end in itself. David’s school-work was gone into, and he gave again the information he had put into his Sunday letter a few weeks ago. Then, it appeared, his father had heard a boy swear as he watched the cricket-match, and hoped that such a thing was a rare if not a unique occurrence, and David, with the barrier of age rising swiftly and impregnably between them, hoped so too. Transitionally, noticing the blue of the July sky, the true meaning of the Latin word caeruleus was debated, and David cordially agreed that it probably meant grey and not blue. Then his prayers were touched on, which, as a rule, were not very fervent performances. This morning, however, he had said one prayer with extreme earnestness to the effect that Helmsworth should win the cricket-match which they had just lost, and David, after the views that had been expressed on the subject of cricket, felt it better not to give details on this subject. Take it altogether, the talk was hardly a success, David’s father feeling that the boy was not “being open with him,” which was perfectly true, and David feeling that his father didn’t understand anything at all about him. This happened to be true also; at any rate, his father had no conception of what it felt like to be thirteen, any more than David had any conception of what it felt like to be forty-five. Then came the one bright spot.

  “The Head is very well satisfied with you,” said his father as they turned.

  Instantly David’s eye brightened.

  “Oh, is he really?” he asked. “How awfully ripping. Even after—”

  He stopped, knowing that his father would not understand.

  “Even after what?” said he.

  David blushed.

  “Oh, it was nothing, “ he said. “I only was going to say after missing that catch. But — but I suppose he would think that didn’t matter. Though, of course, he’s awfully keen for the school to win the Eagles match.”

  He left his father at the Head’s house, and walked back across the field to the museum classroom, where he was already late for preparation, as the lock-up bell had sounded ten minutes before. He knew quite well that his father was fond of him, and was anxious about his well-being, but somehow the serious talks froze him up, and he could not feel all the things he knew he was expected to feel. It was so odd not knowing that fellows swore when they jammed their fingers in doors, or were suddenly annoyed at anything. Probably grown-up people did not, but that was because they were grown-up. He was afraid it was a distinct relief that the “jaw” was over, and on the top of that, in a way that he did not understand, he was sorry he was glad. And then suddenly he swept all those puzzling regrets off his mind, and he became alertly and absolutely thirteen again.

  Walking across the field towards him came Mr. Dutton, who, on his approach, as David’s extremely observant eye noted, put something in his coat-pocket in an interesting and furtive manner. Without doubt he had been smoking his pipe, as he came from common-room, a thing which all the school knew was forbidden to masters in the school precincts, for fear of the bad example to the boys. This was interesting; it might lead to something; and David, knowing that the fact that he had been walking with his father neutralised all possible penalties for being late for lock-up, advanced timidly, as if he thought he was detected in some breach of rules.

  Mr. Dutton had just come out of meat-tea with the other masters, and was feeling autocratic. He called David in a peremptory and abrupt manner.

  “Come here, Blaize, “ he said.

  Now Mr. Dutton was not at all a nice young man, and his unpopularity in the school was perfectly justified. He had favourites, usually pink, pretty little boys, whose misdoings he treated with leniency, while those who were not distinguished with his regard he visited with the hundred petty tyrannies which his mastership gave him the opportunity of exercising. He also had an effective trick of sarcastic speech which is an unfair weapon to employ to those who are not in a position to answer back. And of all those under his charge there was none whom he so cordially disliked as David, who returned the aversion with uncommon heartiness. Mr. Dutton was often not quite sure whether David, under a polite demeanour, was not “cheeking” him (though he need not have had any doubt whatever on the matter), and he was also aware that all the impositions which he set the boy did not make him in the least an object of reverence. However, in a small way, he could make himself burdensome.

  “It’s after lock-up, Blaize,” he said. “What are you doing out!”

  “Only walking about, sir,” said David.

  “Did you know it was after lock-up?”

  David looked guilty and shifted from one foot to another.

  “Ye-es, sir,” he said.

  “Then you will write out two hundred lines of the fourth ‘Æneid’ and bring them to me on Monday evening. I suppose you thought that your heroic performance to-day, that splendid innings of yours which came to an end a little prematurely, perhaps, and the wonderful catch you so nearly held, entitled you to place yourself above school-rules.”

  This was excellent Duttonese, cutting and insulting, and impossible to answer without risk of further penalties for insolence. For the moment David’s face went crimson with anger, and Mr. Dutton rejoiced in his mean heart, and proceeded to pile up irony. He had forgotten the pipe in his pocket, the smoke of which curled thinly up. But David had not forgotten it, nor did he fail to see that the Head was coming up across the field towards them with his swift, rocking motion, and a vengeance of a singularly pleasant kind suggested itself to him. Had not Dubs made himself so gratuitously offensive, he would not have dreamed of taking it; if he had even only stopped there, he might not have done so. But the disgusting Dubs, intoxicated with his own eloquence, and rejoicing to see David writhing under it, did not stop.

  “It was a grand day for you, was it not?” proceeded this odious man, “with your father to look on, and call out ‘Well played, Blaize’ — I beg your pardon, ‘Well played, David.’ And to finish with being late for lock-up is a fine achievement.”

  The Head was close to them now, coming
up silently, on the grass behind Mr. Dutton. At a few yards distance he joined in the colloquy.

  “What is all this? What is all this?” he inquired.

  Mr. Dutton turned.

  “Blaize is late for lock-up,” he said. “I have just set him two hundred lines.”

  “Well, Blaize?” said the Head.

  David shook off the guilty slouch, and stood erect and confident.

  “Please, sir, I was walking with my father,” he said. “Mr. Dutton didn’t ask me to explain, as he went on about my being out first ball and missing that catch.”

  “You have only just left your father?” asked the Head.

  “Yes, sir, two minutes ago.”

  The Head nodded.

  “We will remit that imposition,” he observed.

  Then David suddenly stared at that which he had been secretly glancing at, namely, the whorl of smoke from Mr. Dutton’s pocket.

  “Please, sir, you’re burning,” he said, anxiously pointing at it. “Something is burning in your pocket.”

  The Head transferred his awful eye to Mr. Dutton, and sniffed with his omniscient nose.

  “You may go, Blaize,” he said. “Well, Mr. Dutton?”

  David scuttled off.

  “Scored off, you cad,” he said to himself, still hot with indignation at these insults.

  But, as David had expected, there were far worse things to be faced than the sarcasms of Mr. Dutton. Since the conclusion of the match, David’s performances, heavily handicapped by those of his father, had been subjected to serious debate, and had been found to be wholly unsatisfactory. It was true that he had captured a quantity of Eagles’ wickets at small cost, but with the match in his hands, literally in his hands, he had let it go. Taking his record as a whole, therefore, his futile innings being also brought under scrutiny, it was fair to make unkind allusions to his father. There were dissentients from the general view, the chief of whom was Bags, who said hotly that it was a “chouse” to rag Blazes, considering that if it hadn’t been for him Eagles would probably have won by eight wickets instead of one, for who stood the slightest chance of getting out the fellow whose father had made fifty for England, even weighted as he was with salad of many lobsters? But this view was that of a small minority, and an untrustworthy sort of hush settled down on the first-form class-room as David entered with simulated composure. No master was in charge during this hour of preparation on Saturday evening, and though every boy had to sit at his desk, talking was allowed. Sometimes a sort of patrol-master visited them, and occasionally, for a pleasant surprise, the Head came round, the knowledge of which possibility checked any exuberance; but, provided that no row was made, there was nothing to be feared.