Fathers of Men/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
BOY TO BOY
The match on the Upper, although an impromptu fixture on the strength of an Indian summer's day, was exciting no small interest in the school. It was between the champion house at cricket and the best side that could be got together from all the other houses; and the interesting point was the pronounced unpopularity of the champions (one of the hill houses), due to the insufferable complacency with which they were said to have received the last of many honours. The whole house was accused of having "an awful roll on," and it was the fervent hope of the rest of the school that their delegates would do something to diminish this offensive characteristic. Boys were lying round the ground on rugs, and expressing their feelings after almost every ball, when Chips and Jan crept shyly upon the scene. But within five minutes a bell had tinkled on top of the pavilion; the game had been stopped because it was not a real match after all; and three or four hundred boys, most of them with rugs over their arms, huddled together in the vicinity of the heavy roller.
It so happened that Heriot was call-over master of the day. He stood against the roller in a weather-beaten straw hat, rapping out the names in his abrupt, unmistakable tones, with a lightning glance at almost every atom that said "Here, sir!" and detached itself from the mass.
The mass was deflating rapidly, and Jan was moistening his lips before opening them for the first time in public, when a reddish head, whose shoulders were wedged not far in front of him, suddenly caught Jan's eye.
"Shockley."
"Here, sir."
"Nunn minor."
"Here, sir."
"Carpenter."
"Here, sir."
"Rutter."
No answer. Heriot looking up with pencil poised.
"Rutter?"
"Here, sir!"
And out slips Jan in dire confusion, to join Carpenter on the outskirts of the throng; to be cursed under Shockley's breath; and just to miss the stare of the boy with reddish hair, who has turned a jovial face on hearing the name for the second time.
"I say, Carpenter!"
"Yes?"
"Did you see who that was in front of us?"
"You bet! And they said he wasn't coming back till half-term! I'm going to wait for him."
"Then don't say anything about me—see? He never saw me, so don't say anything about me."
And off went Jan to watch the match, more excited than when he had lost self-control in the quad; the difference was that he did not lose it for a moment now. He heard the name of Devereux called over in its turn. He knew that Carpenter had joined Devereux a moment later. He wondered whether Devereux had seen him also—seen him from the first and pretended not to see him—or only this minute while talking to Chips? Was he questioning Chips, or telling him everything in a torrent?
Jan felt them looking at him, felt their glances like fire upon his neck and ears, as one told and the other listened. But he did not turn round. He swore in his heart that no power should induce him to turn round. And he kept his vow for minutes and minutes that seemed like hours and hours.
It was just as well, for he would have seen with his eyes exactly what he saw in his mind, and that was not all there was to see. There was something else that Jan must have seen—and might have seen through—had his will failed him during the two minutes after call-over. That was the celerity with which Heriot swooped down upon Devereux and Carpenter; laid his hand upon the shoulder of the boy who had won his last term's prize; stood chatting energetically with the pair, chatting almost sharply, and then left them in his abrupt way with a nod and a smile.
But Jan stood square as a battalion under fire, watching a game in which he did not follow a single ball; and as he stood his mind changed, though not his will. He wanted to speak to Evan Devereux now. At least he wanted Evan to come and speak to him; in a few minutes, he was longing for that. But no Evan came. And when at length he did turn round, there was no Evan to come, and no Chips Carpenter either.
The game was in its last and most exciting stage when Jan took himself off the ground; feeling ran high upon the rugs, and expressed itself more shrilly and even oftener than before; and such a storm of cheering chanced to follow Jan into the narrow country street, that two boys quite a long way ahead looked back with one accord. They did not see Jan. They were on the sunny side; he was in the shade. But he found himself following Devereux and Carpenter perforce, because their way was his. He slackened his pace; they stopped at the market-place, and separated obviously against Carpenter's will. Carpenter pursued his way to Heriot's. Devereux turned to the left across the market-place, into the shadow of the old grey church with the dominant spire, with the blue-faced clock that struck in the night, and so to the school buildings and his own quad by the short cut from the hill. And Jan dogged him all the way, lagging behind when his unconscious leader stopped to greet a friend, or to look at a game of fives in the School House court, and in the end seeing Devereux safely into his study before he followed and gave a knock.
Evan had scarcely shut his door before it was open again, but in that moment he had cast his cap, and he stood bareheaded against the dark background of his tiny den, in a frame of cropped ivy. It was an effective change, and an effective setting, in his case. His hair was not red, but it was a pale auburn, and peculiarly fine in quality. In a flash Jan remembered it in long curls, and somebody saying, "What a pity he's not a girl!" And with this striking hair there had always been the peculiarly delicate and transparent skin which is part of the type; there had nearly always been laughing eyes, and a merry mouth; and here they all were in his study doorway, with hardly any difference that Jan could see, though he had dreaded all the difference in the world. And yet, the smile was not quite the old smile, and a flush came first; and Evan looked past Jan into the quad, before inviting him in; and even then he did not shake hands, as he had often done on getting home for the holidays, when Jan's hand was not fit to shake.
But he laughed quite merrily when the door was shut. And Jan, remembering that ready laugh of old, and how little had always served to ring a hearty peal, saw nothing forced or hurtful in it now, but joined in himself with a shamefaced chuckle.
"It is funny, isn't it?" he mumbled. "Me being here!"
"I know!" said Evan, with laughing eyes fixed none the less curiously on Jan.
"When did you get back?" inquired Jan, speedily embarrassed by the comic side.
"Only just this afternoon. I went and had mumps at home."
"That was a bad job," said Jan, solemnly. "It must have spoilt your holidays."
"It did, rather."
"You wouldn't expect to find me here, I suppose?"
"Never thought of it till I heard your name called over and saw it was you. I hear you're in Bob's house?"
"In Mr. Heriot's," affirmed Jan, respectfully.
"We don't 'mister' 'em behind their backs," said Evan, in tears of laughter. "It's awfully funny," he explained, "but I'm awfully glad to see you."
"Thanks," said Jan. "But it's not such fun for me, you know."
"I should have thought you'd like it awfully," remarked Evan, still looking the new Jan merrily up and down.
"After the stables, I suppose you mean?"
Evan was more than serious in a moment.
"I wasn't thinking of them," he declared, with an indignant flush.
"But I was!" cried Jan. "And I'd give something to be back in them, if you want to know!"
"You won't feel like that long," said Evan, reassuringly.
"Won't I!"
"Why should you?"
"I never wanted to come here, for one thing."
"You'll like it well enough, now you are here."
"I hate it!"
"Only to begin with; lots of chaps do at first."
"I always shall. I never wanted to come here; it wasn't my doing, I can tell you."
Evan stared, but did not laugh; he was now studiously kind in look and word, and yet there was something about both that strangely angered Jan. Look and word, in fact, were alike instinctively measured, and the kindness perfunctory if not exactly condescending. There was, to be sure, no conscious reminder, on Evan's part, of past inequality; and yet there was just as little to show that in their new life Evan was prepared to treat Jan as an equal; nay, on their former footing he had been far more friendly. If his present manner augured anything, he was to be neither the friend nor the foe of Jan's extreme hopes and fears. And the unforseen mean was not the less confusing and exasperating because Jan was confused and exasperated without at the time quite knowing why.
"You needn't think it was because you were here," he added suddenly, aggressively—"because I thought you were at Winchester."
"I didn't flatter myself," retorted Evan. "But, as a matter of fact, I should be there if I hadn't got a scholarship here."
"So I suppose," said Jan.
"And yet I'm in the form below you!"
Evan was once more openly amused at this, and perhaps not so secretly annoyed as he imagined.
"I know," said Jan. "That wasn't my fault, either, I doubt they've placed me far too high."
"But how did you manage to get half so high?" asked Evan, with a further ingenuous display of what was in his mind.
"Well, there was the vicar, to begin with."
"That old sinner!" said Evan.
"I used to go to him three nights a week."
"Now I remember."
"Then you heard what happened when my father died?"
"Yes."
"It would be a surprise to you, Master Evan?"
It had been on the tip of his tongue more than once, but until now he had found no difficulty in keeping it there. Yet directly they got back to the old days, out it slipped without a moment's warning.
"You'd better not call me that again," said Evan, dryly.
"I won't."
"Unless you want the whole school to know!"
"You see, my mother's friends"
"I know. I've heard all about it. I always had heard—about your mother.".
Jan had only heard that pitiful romance from his father's dying lips; it was then the boy had promised to obey her family in all things, and his coming here was the first thing of all. He said as much in his own words, which were bald and broken, though by awkwardness rather than emotion. Then Evan asked, as it were in his stride, if Jan's mother's people had a "nice place," and other questions which might have betrayed to a more sophisticated observer a wish to ascertain whether they really were gentlefolk as alleged. Jan answered that it was "a nice enough place"; but he pointed to a photograph in an Oxford frame—the photograph of a large house reflected in a little artificial lake—a house with a slate roof and an ornamental tower, and no tree higher than the first-floor windows.
"That's a nicer place," said Jan, with a sigh.
"I daresay," Evan acquiesced, with cold complacency.
"There's nothing like that in Norfolk," continued Jan, with perfect truth. "Do you remember the first time you took me up to the tower?"
"I can't say I do."
"What! not when we climbed out on the roof?"
"I've climbed out on the roof so often."
"And there's our cottage chimney; and just through that gate we used to play 'snob'!"
Evan did not answer. He had looked at his watch, and was taking down some books. The hint was not to be ignored.
"Well, I only came to say it wasn't my fault," said Jan. "I never knew they were going to send me to the same school as you, or they'd have had a job to get me to come."
"Why?" asked Evan, more stiffly than he had spoken yet. "I shan't interfere with you."
"I'm sure you won't!" cried Jan, with the bitterness which had been steadily gathering in his heart.
"Then what's the matter with you? Do you think I'm going to tell the whole school all about you?"
Jan felt that he was somehow being put in the wrong; and assisted in the process by suddenly becoming his most sullen self.
"I don't know," he answered, hanging his head.
"You don't know! Do you think I'd think of such a thing?"
"I think a good many would."
"You think I would?"
"I don't say that."
"But you think it?"
Evan pressed him hotly.
"I don't think anything; and I don't care what anybody thinks of me, or what anybody knows!" cried Jan, not lying, but speaking as he had suddenly begun to feel.
"Then I don't know why on earth you came to me," said Evan scornfully.
"No more do I," muttered Jan; and out he went into the quad, and crossed it with a flaming face. But at the further side he turned. Evan's door was still open, as Jan had left it, but Evan had not come out.
Jan found him standing in the same attitude, with the book he had taken down, still unopened in his hand, and a troubled frown upon his face.
"What's the matter now?" asked Evan.
"I'm sorry—Devereux!"
"So am I."
"I might have known you wouldn't tell a soul."
"I think you might."
"And of course I don't want a soul to know. I thought I didn't care a minute ago. But I do care, more than enough."
"Well, no one shall hear from me. I give you my word about that."
"Thank you!"
Jan was holding out his hand.
"Oh, that's all right."
"Won't you shake hands?"
"Oh, with pleasure, if you like."
But the grip was all on one side.