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Tell England by Ernest Raymond

E >> Ernest Raymond >> Tell England




Third in importance is my quarrel with Edgar Doe. It began, I think,
with his jealousy of me as Radley's new favourite. Then he has
apparently thrown over all desire for glory in the cricket world and
decided that, for an elect mind such as his, a reputation for
intellectual brilliance is the only seemly fame. He delights to
shock us by boldly saying that he would rather win the Horace Prize
than his First Eleven Colours; and is actually at work, I believe,
on a translation of the Odes into English verse. At any rate, he is
two forms ahead of Penny and me, and has joined the Intellectuals.
He has views on the Pre-Raphaelites, Romanticism, and the Housing
Question.

Maybe, too, I have been very willing for the quarrel to proceed,
because he will persist in his collusion with that mystery-man,
Freedham.

Archibald Pennybet is the same as ever, unless, perhaps, his eyelids
are drooping a little more in satisfaction with himself, and his
nostrils becoming more sensitive to the inferiority of everybody
else.

In a rash moment, one half-holiday, Penny and I made use of the
privilege, to which we became entitled when we completed two years
at Kensingtowe, of strolling across to the Preparatory School
and organising a cricket match between some of the younger
"Sucker-boys." Not being allowed to go down to the town, we thought
there might be fun in playing the heavy autocrat at the "Nursery."

"We'll make these beastly little maggots sit up, unless they play
properly," said Penny. "There shall be no fooling when _we_ umpire."

The Suckers received us with gratifying awe. One of them in a moment
of forgetfulness called Pennybet "sir." He accepted it without
remark, as his due.

For half-an-hour we did well. Six balls went to every "over," no
more and no less. Our decisions, when we were appealed to, were
given promptly and decisively. But the boys were so small, and the
play was so bad, that the novelty soon wore off. Our feeling of
importance died away, when we realised we were umpiring in a match
where the stumps were kept in position by the bails, and there was
no one who could bowl a straight ball, or anyone who could hit it,
if he did. The wicket-keeper, also, gave Penny much trouble; and
sulked because he had been forbidden to stop the swift bowler's
deliveries by holding a coat in front of him and allowing the ball
to become entangled in its folds. My fellow-umpire had occasion to
speak very seriously to him. "Really," he said, "you're a stench in
my nostrils. Mr. Ray, who's kindly umpiring for you at the other
end, never gave me half the cheek you do, when _he_ was a kid." For
a second the little boy wondered if he had made a mistake and Penny
was really a master.

Having given eight balls to an over, I got bored and retired to my
position at square-leg, displeased with the condition on which our
privilege was granted that, having organised a game, we were to
remain at our posts to the end. Someone awoke Penny, who walked with
a yawn to the bowler's wicket, and, graciously putting into his
mouth a huge green fruit-ball, offered by one of the more minute
players, said with this obstruction on his tongue:

"Plo-ay."

When the twenty-eighth ball of that over had been bowled, I went
across to Penny, presented my compliments, and intimated that six
balls constituted an over. In a reply of some length he showed that
he had a sucked fruit-ball in his mouth, which he must of necessity
finish before he called "over," as the word required a certain
rounding of the lips, and the confectionery might shoot out of his
mouth at the effort. An impertinent little junior echoed my
criticism.

"Yes," he protested, "there are six balls to an over."

Penny placed the fruit-ball between his gums and his cheek, and
answered magnificently:

"There are not. There are just as many as I choose to give."

Then he took the fruit-ball on his tongue again and added:

"We-soom your plo-ay."

The bowler having exerted himself twenty-nine times, was a little
tired and erratic, and the thirtieth ball hit Square-leg in the
stomach.

"Wide," announced Penny, without a smile.

The thirty-first ball, amid disorderly laughter, was caught by
Point before it pitched. The batsman meanwhile sat astride his bat:
he was the only person who seemed out of harm's way. Point held up
the ball triumphantly and yelled to Penny: "What's that, umpire?"

"I think it would not be unreasonable," answered Penny, "to call
that a wide."

This was a long sentence, and the fruit-ball shot out about half-way
through.

Relieved of this confectionery, Penny proceeded to give a practical
illustration of "How to bowl." I fear he intended to show off, and
to send down a ball at express speed which should shatter the
stumps. At any rate, while the Suckers watched with breathless
interest, he took a long run and let fly. One thing in favour of
Penny's ball was that it went straight. But it flew two feet over
the head of the batsman, who flung himself upon his face. It pitched
opposite Long-stop.

"Run!" yelled the batsman, picking himself up. "_Bye!_ Run, you
fool! Bye, idiot!" This was addressed to the batsman at the other
end, who was swinging his bat like an Indian club and paying no
attention to the game. He pulled himself together on being appealed
to, and ran, but it was evident that he could not reach his crease,
as Long-stop had accidentally stopped the lightning-ball--much to
his own chagrin--and was hurling it back to the wicket-keeper with
all the enthusiasm of acute agony.

Our unhappy batsman did what excitable little boys always do--flung
in his bat and sprawled on the ground. The bat struck the
wicket-keeper, who had just knocked off the bails. It hit him, so he
said, on his bad place.

"Out," ruled I.

"Over," proclaimed Penny victoriously, as who should say: "There!
I've got a man out for you"; and he retired honourably to the leg
position, where he composed himself for a happy day-dream.

The new bowler at my end began by bowling swift. The wicket-keeper
jumped out of the way, as his mother would have wished him to do,
and Long-stop shut his eyes and hoped for the best. The batsman
blindly waved his bat, and, inasmuch as the ball hit it, and
rebounded some distance, called to his partner, who was mending the
binding on his bat-handle.

"Will you come? Osborne, you fool! Yes. _Yes_. YES! No, no.
YE-E-ES! No--go back, you fool. All right, come. No-no-no. O,
Osborne, why didn't you run that? It was an easy one."

"Silly ass, Osborne," roared Cover-point, quite gratuitously, for no
one had addressed him for the last twenty minutes.

The batsman ran wildly out to the next ball and missed it. The
wicket-keeper successfully stumped him. It was a clear case of
"out," and a shout went up: "How's that?"

"That," said Penny, who had been in a dream and seen nothing, "is
Not Out."

I was disheartened to learn on this occasion that little boys could
be so rude to those who were sacrificing their spare time to teach
them cricket.

"Really," sighed Penny, adjusting his tie, "unless you treat me with
due respect, I will not come and coach you again."

This was greeted with an unmannerly cheer.

"Resume your play," commanded Pennybet. "It was Not Out."

"Why?" loudly demanded the bowler.

Penny seized the only escape from his sensational error.

"Because, you horrid little tuberculous maggot, it was a no-ball.
Besides, you smell."

The little boy looked defiantly at him, and, pointing to me, said:

"Bowler's umpire didn't give 'no-ball.'"

"Then," said Penny promptly, "he ought to have done."

I was so shocked at this unscrupulous method of sacrificing me to
save his reputation that I shouted indignantly: "You're a liar!"

Later a warm discussion arose between the batsman and the bowler as
to whether the former could be out, if "centre" had not been given
to him properly. I took no part in it, but looked significantly at
Pennybet. He gazed reproachfully at me, as much as to say: "How
could you suggest such a thing?" I walked over to him, ostensibly to
ask his advice. The quarrel continued, most of the fieldsmen
asserting that the batsman was out: they wanted an innings.
Unperceived, we strolled leisurely away and disappeared round a
corner. The last thing that I heard was the batsman's voice
shouting: "I'm not an ass. I haven't got four legs, so sucks for
you!"


Sec.2

Reaching the road, we linked arms with the affection born of sharing
a crime and the risk of detection.

"Where are we going to?" asked I.

"Ee, bless me, my man. Down town, of course."

"But it's out of bounds."

"Ee, bless me, my man, don't you know that to me all rules are but
gossamer threads that I break at my will? I'm off to buy sausages. I
haven't had anything worth eating since the holidays."

And so, arm in arm, we marched briskly down the Beaten Track. The
Beaten Track, I must tell you, was a route into the town which
Penny, Doe, and I regarded as our private highway. We would have
esteemed it disloyalty to an inanimate friend to approach the town
by any other channel. It led through the residential district of
Kensingtowe, past a fashionable church, and down a hill. Dear old
Beaten Track! How often have I mouched over it, alone and dreamy,
adjusting my steps to the cracks between its pavement-flags! How
often have I sauntered along it, arm in arm with one of my friends,
talking those great plans which have come to nothing!

We always became confidential on the Beaten Track; and to-day I
suddenly pressed Penny's arm and opened the subject that, though I
would not have admitted it, was the most pressing at the moment.

"I say, why does Doe avoid us now?"

"The Gray Doe," sneered Penny. "Oh, he--She's in love, I suppose.
With Radley."

"Don't drivel," I commanded; "why does he hang about with that awful
Freedham?"

"When you're my age, Rupert," began Penny, in kind and accommodating
explanation, "you'll know that there are such things as degenerates
and decadents. Freedham is one. And very soon Doe will be another."

"Well, hang it," I said, "if you think that, how can you joke about
it, and leave him to go his way?"

"Oh, the young fellow must learn wisdom. And he's not in any danger
of being copped. I'm the only one that suspects; and I guessed
because I'm exceptionally brilliant. Besides, if he wants to go to
the devil for a bit, you can't take his arm and go with him."

"No," said I, "but you can take his arm and lug him back."

"There are times, Rupert," conceded Penny graciously, "when you show
distinct promise. I have great hopes of you, my boy."

"Oh, shut up!" I said, mentally overthrown to find that, without
forewarning of any kind, something had filled my throat like a sob
of temper. What was the matter with me? I unlinked my arm and walked
beside Penny in moody silence, determining that at an early
opportunity I would bring about a quarrel between us which should
not be easily repaired. He, however, was disposed to continue being
humorous, and frequently cracked little jokes aloud to himself.
"Here's the butcher's shop," he explained, pointing to an array of
carcasses; "hats off! We're in the presence of death." And, when he
had purchased his sausages, he stepped gaily out of the place,
saying: "Come along, Rupert, my boy. Home to tea! Trip along at
Nursie's side." Just as I, thoroughly sulky, was wondering how best
to break with him, and deciding to let him walk on alone a hundred
yards, before I resumed my homeward journey, I heard his voice
saying:

"Talking about Doe, there he is. And the naughty lad has been
strictly forbidden to enter the town. Dear, dear!"

It was an acute moment. There, far ahead of us, was Doe in the
company of Freedham, with whom he was turning into a doorway. A pang
of jealousy stabbed me, and with a throb, that was as pleasing as
painful, I realised that I loved Doe as Orestes loved Pylades.

The truth is this: ever since our form had been engaged on Cicero's
"De Amicitia," I had wanted to believe that my friendship for Doe
was on the classical models. And now came the gift of faith. It was
born of my sharp jealousy, my present weariness of Pennybet, and my
heroic resolution to rescue Doe from the degenerate hands of
Freedham. Only go nobly to someone's assistance, and you will love
him for ever. Love! It was an unusual word for a shy boy to admit
into his thoughts, but I was even taking a defiant and malicious
pleasure in using it. I was Orestes, and I loved Pylades.

In the glow of this romantic discovery, I no longer thought Penny
worth any anger or resentment, so I slipped my arm back into his. He
patted my hand with just such an action as an indulgent father would
use in welcoming a sulky child who has returned for forgiveness.
After this we climbed the slope of the Beaten Track at a faster
pace. And then--what an afternoon of strange moods and tense moments
this was!--I encountered on the other side of the road the surprised
gaze of Radley.

It was a very awkward recognition, and I hope he felt half as
uncomfortable as I did. I pinched Penny's arm and hurried him on
quickly.

"Don't push me," he grumbled. "The damage is done. And it's all your
fault for leading me astray. Radley'll tell. He never spares anyone;
least of all, his pets, like you. There's one comfort; I can't be
whacked; I'm too old. But you'll get it, Rupert. Salome's already
done several of the sixteen-year-olds. Cheer up, Rupert!"

"Hang you, I don't want your sympathy," I retorted sullenly. And as
I said it, I passed through Kensingtowe's gates to the punishment
that awaited me within.


Sec.3

We were not summoned for judgment for several uneasy hours. It was
dreary, waiting. About six o'clock I paid a lonesome visit to the
swimming baths, and was glad to find them deserted. Even Jerry
Brisket, the professional instructor, was not in his little private
room. Jerry Brisket, that supreme swimmer, loomed as an heroic
figure to me who fancied myself no common devotee of his art. I had
often thought that my ideal would be to build a private swimming
bath and to employ Jerry at a salary of some thousands as my own
particular coach. But to-night, in spite of this lavish worship, I
was relieved to find him absent. I flung off my clothes and took a
long, splashless dive into the shallow end.

Water was my favourite element, especially the clear, green water of
the baths. I loved to feel that it was covering every part of my
body. With my breast nearly touching the tiled bottom, I swam under
water for a long spell. And, moving down there, like a young eel, I
compared this dip with that in the beautiful Fal of a year ago.
Certainly there was still pleasure, glorious pleasure, in complete
submersion, but on that bejewelled day there was joy above as well
as below the surface. This evening all that awaited me, when I rose
from the transparent water, was punishment and indignity.

"Hang it," I said to myself. "I think I'll stay in the baths. They
can't dive after me here."

With the unreasonableness of guilt I stigmatised all those plotting
my hurt as "they." I did not specialise individuals, possibly
because Radley was one. They were "they"--a contemptible "they."

"They are brutes," I concluded, "and I don't care a hang for any of
them."

Then, in the luxury of defiance, I swam my fastest and most furious
racing-stroke, till my breath gave out with a gasp, my breast felt
like bursting, and my heart beat heavily on my ribs. So I lay supine
upon the water, closed my eyes, and derived a surfeit of joy from
this rest after fatigue.

And, while I was doing that, I suffered a queer thing. Through my
closed lids I saw a yellow atmosphere that was fast whitening. It
seemed to smell very sweet; and the sensation of seeing it and
smelling it was intoxicatingly delightful. It was like an opiate.
What Freedham was doing in the atmosphere I know not, but I saw him,
as one would in a dream. An exquisite sleepiness was entrancing me,
when the cold water rushed in at my ears and mouth, and with an
"Oh!" and a choking, I struggled to the rope. Dizzily, and feeling a
pain in my head and neck, I scrambled out and lay upon the cold
sides of the baths.

"Heavens!" thought I. "That was a close shave. I must have strained
myself and nearly fainted. Why have I got that ass, Freedham, on the
brain?"

At that moment the sound of Jerry Brisket's return caused me to
jump up and dress. I was quite recovered, but tired and depressed.
And, as a result of the curious conditions of the evening, there
seemed to be gathering about me a presentiment of disaster.

When I passed Jerry's door on my way out of the building, I thought
I would like to hear a friendly voice, so I called:

"Good-night, Jerry."

He came to the door in his white sweater and white trousers.

"Good-night, Mr. Ray. Where are you off to now?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I'm off to be walloped."

Jerry was too courteous to seek particulars.

"Oh, bad luck," he said. "Come to the baths this time to-morrow, and
it'll be all over."

"Oh, I don't mind, it, Jerry," I replied. "Good-night"; and, letting
the door swing behind me, I passed out of the baths.

"Good old Jerry," I murmured sentimentally. "By Jove, if I could
only swim like him! Dear--old--Jerry."

An unaccountable melancholy overcame me, as I rambled in this
strain. I sighed: "I think I'm getting too old to be whacked."

And, as I phrased the thought, walking dreamily outside the baths,
the strangest thing of this evening happened. There seemed to be
thrown over me, far more heavily than on that evening up the Fal,
the shadow of my oncoming manhood. And with it came ineffable
longings--longings to live, and to feel; to do, and to be. The vague
wish to avoid the indignity of corporal punishment threw off its
cloak and showed itself to be Aspiration. There, outside the baths,
the AEsthetic awoke in me. The sensation, infinitely sad and yet
pleasing, was so complete that it left me hot-cheeked and
wondering....

In truth, so warm and all-pervading was it that the other day, when
during a short leave from France I stood on the gravel that sweeps
to the entrance of the baths, I felt the memory of that moment of
yearning egoism hanging over the spot like a restless spirit of the
past.


Sec.4

The whole period of Preparation passed in suspense. And, when the
bell had gone, Penny and I found our way to one of the Bramhall
class-rooms, where I sat upon the hot-water pipes (the wisdom of
which proceeding I have since doubted). After about five minutes
there rushed in a bad little boy who, having more relish in the
thought of his message than breath to deliver it, puffed out: "Oh,
there you are. I've searched for you everywhere." Then he paused,
recovered his breath, and actually pointed a finger at us, saying:

"Ee, bless me, my men, Salome wants you in Radley's room."

Penny took the small boy's head and banged it three times on a desk.

In Radley's familiar room we found Salome, who no sooner saw me than
he cried:

"Ee, bless me, my man. Will you _take_--your _hand_--out of your
_pocket_?"

This was such a surprise that I blushed and--oh, accursed
nervousness!--began to giggle. My terror at giggling in the Presence
was so real that I compressed my lips to secure control. But control
was as impossible as concealment. Salome came very close, pointed at
my mouth, and said:

"I think you're _giggling_. Take off that ridiculous expression, my
man. I'm _going_--to _smack_--your _face_."

Sobered in a moment, I composed my features for the punishment and
received it, stinging and burning, on my reddened cheek.

Salome again pointed at me.

"You're a _sportsman_, sir, a _sportsman_, and I _like_ you," an
affection which I at once reciprocated.

"Ee, bless me, my man," he pursued. "What's your horrible name?"

"Ray, sir."

"Well, Ray, I'm going to cane you hard"--(rather crudely expressed,
I thought)--"because your offence is serious, bless me, my man"--(an
unreasonable request at this stage).

He took out his cane and turned first to Pennybet.

"I find, Mr. Pennybet, that, when you were breaking bounds, you
should have been with your _company_--your _company_, sir--at
shooting practice. It's _desertion_, sir--and punishable by _death_.
But I shan't shoot you. You're not _worth_ it--not _worth_ it. I
shan't even cane you, sir. You're too _old_--too _old_."

Penny looked at him, as much as to say he thought his point of view
was very sensible.

"But ee, bless me, my man, take off that complacent expression, or I
feel I may certainly smack your face."

Poor Penny, for once in a way, was rather at a loss, which was all
Salome desired, so he turned to me.

"Ray--I think _that_ was your detestable name--I shall now cane you.
Get _over_, my man--get _over_."

When the ceremony was completed, Salome talked to us so nicely,
although periodically asking us to bless him, that I told myself I
would never break bounds again; thereby making one of those good
resolutions which pave, we are told, another Beaten Track.




CHAPTER VIII

THE FREEDHAM REVELATIONS


Sec.1

The next half-holiday I was walking towards the tuck-shop and
gloomily deciding that Doe's wilful estrangement from me was fast
being frozen into tacit enmity, when I felt an arm tucked most
affectionately into mine. It was done so quietly and quickly that I
nearly leapt a yard at the shock. The arm belonged to Doe.

"Ray, you old ass," he began.

Doe, now sixteen, was not so very different from the small fawning
creature of three years before. Although the perfect curve of the
cheek-line had given place to a perceptible depression beneath the
cheek-bone; although the usual marks of a boy's adolescence--the
slight pallor, the quick blush of diffidence, the slimness of
limb--were all very noticeable in Doe, there was yet much of the
original Baby about his appearance. It could be marked in his soft,
indeterminate mouth, whose flower-like lips seemed always parted; in
his inquiring eyes and unkempt hair; and, at the present moment, in
an artless excitement that I had not seen for many a day.

I tried to drag my arm away, but he held it too tight, and proceeded
to make the remarkable statement:

"You old ass! Surely you've been sulking long enough."

"Well, I like that," replied I, with an empty laugh. "You drop me,
sulk like a pig, and then say it's the other way round--"

"Rot!" he interrupted. "Didn't you deliberately cut me out with
Radley?"

"I don't know what you mean," I said, although the hint that I was
Radley's favourite always gave me a flush of pleasure.

"And haven't you been hanging on to Penny, just to make me
jealous?"

"Never entered my head," I replied promptly, and with truth. "I
leave that sort of thing to schoolgirls like you. But it evidently
did make you jealous."

"_Yes_, it did," he admitted with an engaging smile. This softened
me; and my affection for him began at once to throb into activity.

"_Yes_, it did; and now that you've said you're sorry, I feel
frightfully lively. Let's go and smash a window or something."

His spirits were infectious, and he dragged me off to the study
which his intellectual eminence had recently secured for him. When
we arrived there, he tossed me a bag of sweets, which had clearly
been bought as a means to sugar the reconciliation, and, dropping
into his armchair, stretched his legs in front of him, and said:

"Let's talk as we used to."

I was relieved from the necessity of finding some opening remark by
the bursting into the room of "Moles" White.

If you look up the Latin word "Moles" in the dictionary, you will
find that it means "a huge, shapeless mass"; and all of us had been
very quick to see that this was an excellent description of our
junior house-prefect, White. Moles White was as enormous and ugly in
his dimensions as he was genial and simple in face. You saw at a
glance that he possessed all the traditional kindliness and
generosity of the giant. As he crashed into Doe's study, he was
swinging some books on the end of a strap.

"Found you, Doe," said he. "Look here, Bramhall's got to make the
best house-team it can, which means you must give up slacking at
cricket. You'll play at the nets this evening."

"Heavens! Ray," Doe murmured in mock dismay, as he stared out of
eyes that sparkled with impudence at White's huge frame, "what on
earth is this coming in?"

White smiled meaningly.

"Don't be cheeky now, Doe," he suggested. "No lip, please."

Doe's reply was a laugh, and the question addressed to me:

"I say, Ray, do you think it's an Iguanodon?"

"Well," said White, striding forward and beginning to swing his
books ominously, "if you're asking for trouble, you shall have it."

Doe ducked down and raised his right hand to protect his head.

"I never said it, White," he affirmed, giggling. "Really, I didn't.
You thought I did. I never called you an Iguanodon--I've too much
respect for you."

"Yes, you did. Take your hand away. I'm determined to swing these
books on to your head."

"Ray," shouted Doe between his giggles, "take him away. Don't bully,
Moles! You great beast! Ray, he's bullying me."

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