The Loom of Youth Part 1

The Loom of Youth.

by Alec Waugh.

_Dedicatory Letter to Arthur Waugh_

My Dear Father,

This book, which I am bringing you, is a very small return for all you have given me. In every mood, in every phase of my s.h.i.+fting pilgrimage, I have found you ever the same--loving, sympathetic, wise. You have been with me in my success, and in my happiness, in my failures and in my disappointments, in the hours when I have followed wandering fires.

There has never yet come to me a moment when I did not know that I had but to stretch out my hand to find you at my side. In return for so much, this first book of mine is a very small offering.

But yet I bring it to you, simply because it is my first. For whatever altars I may have raised by the wayside, whatever ephemeral loyalties may have swayed me, my one real lodestar has always been your love, and sympathy, and guidance. And as in life it has always been to you first that I have brought my troubles, my aims, my hopes, so in the world of ideas it is to you that I would bring this, the first-born of my dreams.

Accept it. For it carries with it the very real and very deep love of a most grateful son.

A.W.

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

Books have their fates and this one's has been curious. I wrote it between January and March 1916, when I was seventeen and a half years old and in camp at Berkhamsted with the Inns of Court O.T.C. I loathed it there, everything about it, the impersonal military machine, the monotonous routine of drills and musketry, the endless foot-slogging, the perpetual petty fault-finding. I kept comparing my present life with that which I had been leading ten, eighteen, thirty months ago at Sherborne, as a schoolboy.

My four years there had been very happy. I was the kind of a boy who gets the most out of a public school. I loved cricket and football and was reasonably good at them. I was in the first XV and my last summer headed the batting averages. My father had lit in me a love of poetry and an interest in history and the cla.s.sics. More often than not I went into a cla.s.s-room looking forward to the hour that lay ahead. I enjoyed the whole compet.i.tive drama of school life--the cups and caps and form promotions. As I marched as a cadet over Ashridge Park I remembered that a year ago I had been bicycling down to the football field for a punt about on Upper. As I listened to a lecture on the establishment of an infantry brigade, I thought of the sixth form sitting under that fine scholar and Wordsworthian Nowell Smith to a discussion of Victorian poetry. In the evenings on my way to night operations, pa.s.sing Berkhamsted School and looking at the lighted windows, I would think, "At Sherborne now they are sitting round the games study fire waiting for the bell to ring for hall". Day by day, hour by hour, I pictured myself back at school.

I was in a nostalgic mood, but I was also in a rebellious mood.

Intensely though I had enjoyed my four years at Sherborne, I had been in constant conflict with authority. That conflict, so it seemed to me, had been in the main caused and determined by authority's inability or refusal to recognise the true nature of school life. The Public School system was venerated as a pillar of the British Empire and out of that veneration had grown a myth of the ideal Public School boy--Kipling's Brushwood Boy. In no sense had I incarnated such a myth and it had been responsible, I felt, for half my troubles. I wanted to expose it. Those moods of nostalgia and rebellion fused finally in an imperious need to relive my school days on paper, to put it all down, term by term, exactly as it had been, to explain, interpret, justify my point of view.

I wrote the book in six and a half weeks, getting up at half past four every morning and returning to my ma.n.u.script at night after the day's parades. I posted it, section by section, to my father who corrected the spelling and punctuation, interjected an occasional phrase and sent it to be typed. I never revised it. As the ma.n.u.script shows, it was printed as it was written, paragraph by paragraph.

The book after two or three refusals was accepted by Grant Richards and published in July 1917 in the same week that I was posted as a machine-gun second-lieutenant to the B.E.F. in France. It could not have come out under luckier auspices. It had an immediate news value. There was a boom in soldier poets. Robert Graves, Siegfried Sa.s.soon, Robert Nichols, W.J. Turner had recently made their debuts. Here was a soldier novelist, the first and in his teens. As always in war-time there was a demand for books and there was that summer a dearth of novels. A spirit of challenge and criticism was in the air. The war after three years was still "bogged down" and public opinion attributed allied failings in the field to mismanagement in high places. The rebelliousness of _The Loom of Youth_ was in tune with the temper of the hour. Finally I had the immense advantage of being the son of Arthur Waugh. My father as a critic and a publisher was one of the most loved and respected figures in the world of letters. Many were anxious to give his son a chance.

The book had a flattering reception. Nothing of any particular interest was being published at the moment and reviewers welcomed it. J.C.

Squire, Gerald Gould, Ralph Straus, C.K. Scott-Moncrieff, E.B. Osborn, all made it their book of the week. Nor was it noticed only in the book sections. Richards had suggested that Thomas Seccombe who was then history professor at Sandhurst and had introduced the book to him, should write a preface. That preface discussed the Public School system in the light of contemporary events. The system, Seccombe wrote, "has fairly helped, you may say, to get us out of the mess of August 1914.

Yes, but it contributed heavily to get us into it." The preface encouraged and helped a journalist to use the book as the text for a general article. Within a month it had received twenty-four columns of reviews and was in its third impression. Grant Richards told my father that with any luck he would sell five thousand copies.

That was at the end of the August. Three weeks later the schools went back and half the housemasters in the country found their desks littered with letters from anxious parents demanding an a.s.surance that their Bobbie was not subject to the temptations described in this alarming book. In self-defence the schoolmasters. .h.i.t back and by mid-November the book had become the centre of violent controversy. In many schools the book was banned and several boys were caned for reading it. Canon Edward Lyttleton, the ex-headmaster of Eton, wrote a ten-page article in _The Contemporary_--then an influential monthly--explaining how biased and partial a picture the school gave. _The Spectator_ ran for ten weeks and _The Nation_ for six a correspondence filling three or four pages an issue in which schoolmaster after schoolmaster a.s.serted that whatever might be true of "Fernhurst", at his school it was all very different.

Grant Richards adeptly fanned the conflagration. He had initiated that summer an original style of advertising. He inserted each week in the _Times Literary Supplement_ a half column of gossip about his books and authors. It was set in small heavy black type, and caught the eye.

Richards was a good writer and it was very readable. He was, I think, the first publisher to exploit the publicity value of unfavourable comment. Richard Hughes, at that time in the sixth form at Charterhouse, wrote, as his weekly essay, an attack on _The Loom of Youth_. His form master, Dames Longworth, a fine old Tory, sent it up to _The Spectator_, as a counterblast to such "pernicious stuff". Next week Grant Richards quoted him. Mr Dames Longworth called the book "pernicious stuff", but Clement Shorter prophesied in _The Sphere_ that it would prove "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the Public School system". By Christmas the book was a best seller.

A modern reader will wonder what all this fuss and indignation was about. Two points are to be remembered. First that before World War I Britain's imperial destiny was never questioned, and the Public School system as a bulwark of Empire was held sacrosanct. Second that no book before _The Loom of Youth_ had accepted as part of the fabric of School life the inevitable emotional consequences of a monastic herding together for eight months of the year of thirteen year old children and eighteen year old adolescents. On that issue such a complete conspiracy of silence had been maintained that when fathers were asked by their wives, and schoolmasters by parents who had not themselves been at public schools whether "such things really could take place", the only defence was a grudging admission, "Perhaps in a bad house, in a bad school, in a bad time."

I followed the controversy with mixed feelings. I was delighted of course at the book's success. At the same time I was distressed at being accused of having libelled the school where I had been so happy, to which I was so devoted, and to so many of whose masters--in particular its headmaster--I owed so much.

Well, that is all a long long time ago, and usually nothing is more dead and dated than the book which once caused controversy. Yet _The Loom of Youth_ has continued to sell steadily from one year to the next; in 1928 it was included in Ca.s.sell's Pocket Library; in 1942 it was issued as a Penguin and now that the original plates are wearing out, Mr Martin Secker and the directors of The Richards Press feel that it is worth their while to reset the type and give the book another lease of life. I hope that their confidence will be justified. If it is, it will be for reasons very different from those which made _The Loom of Youth_ a best seller in 1917. The modern reader will find nothing here to shock or startle him. Several years ago a friend was reading the book in my company. "When do I reach _the_ scene?" he asked. I looked over his shoulder. "You've pa.s.sed it, ten pages back," I told him. At the same time the book is not presented as a "period piece". Though England to-day is a different country, socially and economically, from what it was in 1911 when I went to Sherborne, I do not think that in essentials the life of the Public School boy has greatly changed. Most schools are larger than they were, but they have retained the same traditions and ideals; there is the same atmosphere of rivalry and competing loyalties; youth has the same basic problems, is fired by the same ambitions, beset by the same doubts. And if the modern reader, after turning a page or two finds his attention held and wants to go on reading, it will mean that this book has become at last what in fact it was always meant to be--a realistic but romantic story of healthy adolescence set against the background of an average English Public School.

April, 1954.

Alec Waugh

BOOK I: WARP AND WOOF

"While I lived I sought no wings, Schemed no heaven, planned no h.e.l.l; But, content with little things, Made an earth and it was well."

RICHARD MIDDLETON.

CHAPTER I: GROPING

There comes some time an end to all things, to the good and to the bad.

And at last Gordon Caruthers' first day at school, which had so combined excitement and depression as to make it unforgettable, ended also.

Seldom had he felt such a supreme happiness as when he stepped out at Fernhurst station, and between his father and mother walked up the broad, white road that led past the Eversham Hotel to the great grey Abbey, that watches as a sentinel over the dreamy Wess.e.x town. There are few schools in England more surrounded with the glamour of mediaeval days than Fernhurst. Founded in the eighth century by a Saxon saint, it was the abode of monks till the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Then after a short interregnum Edward VI endowed it and restored the old curriculum.

The buildings are unchanged. It is true that there have sprung up new cla.s.s-rooms round the court, and that opposite the cloisters a huge yellow block of buildings has been erected which provides workshops and laboratories, but the Abbey and the School House studies stand as they stood seven hundred years ago. To a boy of any imagination, such a place could not but waken a wonderful sense of the beautiful. And Gordon gazing from the school gateway across to the grey ivy-clad studies was taken for a few moments clean outside himself. The next few hours only served to deepen this wonder and admiration. For Fernhurst is prodigal of a.s.sociations. The School House dining-hall is a magnificent oak-panelled room, where generations of men have cut their names; and above the ledge on which repose the silver challenge cups the house has won, is a large statue of King Edward VI looking down on the row of tables. When he first entered the hall, Gordon pitied those in other houses immensely. It seemed to him that though in "the outhouses"--as they were called at Fernhurst--the eugenic machinery might be more up to date, and the method of lighting and heating far more satisfactory, yet it could not be the same there as in the School House; and he never quite freed himself of the illusion that, if the truth were known, every outhouse boy rather regretted that he had not chosen otherwise. For indeed the bloods of other houses are very often found sitting over the fire in the School House games study.

Until about six o'clock Gordon could not have been happier, his future seemed so full of possibilities. But when his father and mother left him to catch the afternoon train back to town, and the evening train brought with it a swarm of boys in the most wonderful ties and socks, and all so engrossed in their own affairs, and so indifferent to his, Gordon began to feel very lonely. Supper was not till nine and he had three hours to put in. Very disconsolately he wandered round the green slopes above the town where was the town football ground and where in the summer term those members of the Fifteen who despised cricket would enjoy their quiet pipe and long for the rains of November. But that walk did not take long, especially as he did not dare to go out of the sight of the Abbey for fear of getting lost. When he returned to the House the court was loud with shouts and laughter. Everyone had something to do. There was the luggage to fetch from the day-room. The town porter, known generally as Slimy Tim, was waiting to be tipped. Health certificates had to be produced. There was a sporting chance of finding in Merriman's second-hand bookshop--out of bounds during term-time--an English version of Vergil and Xenophon. There were a hundred things to do for everyone except Gordon. There were several other new boys, doubtless, to be found among this unending stream of bowler hats. But he saw no way of discovering them. He did, it is true, make one attempt. Very bravely he walked up to a rather bored individual who was leaning against the door that led into the studies and asked him if he was a new boy. His reception was not friendly. The person in question was Sandham of the Lower Sixth, who had been made a house prefect and was very conscious of it, and who was also well aware of the fact that he was not very tall.

His friends called him "The c.o.c.kroach"; and Gordon was told politely to go elsewhere. He did not, however, go where he was told, but sauntered sadly down to the matron's room, only to find it full of people all with some complaint. Some had lost their keys, others were furious that their people should have been charged for biscuits and sultana cake that they had never had, but the greater part were wanting to know why the old bathroom had been turned into a study for the Chief's secretary, while they had been given in exchange a lot of small zinc hip-baths. To the smaller members of the House this change was rather popular. On the days when there were only four baths among eighty, it did not matter very much to them how large they were, if they were always occupied by the bloods, while however small the new baths might be, there were sufficient to go round. The bloods did not look on the matter in this light.

Gordon walked from room to room utterly miserable. n.o.body took the slightest notice of him, only one person asked his name, and that was a small person of one term's standing who wanted to show that he was a power in the land. At last, however, the old cracked bell rang out for supper, and very thankfully he took his place among the new boys at the bottom of the day-room table. Evening prayers in the School House had once been rather a festive occasion, and a hymn chosen by the head of the House was sung every night. It had been the custom to choose a hymn with some topical allusion. For instance, on the evening when the House tutor had given a hundred lines to every member of the day-room for disturbing a masters' meeting, by playing cricket next door, they chose _Fierce raged the Tempest o'er the Deep_; and on one occasion when an unpopular prefect had been unexpectedly expelled the House was soothed with the strains of _Peace, Perfect Peace_. But those days were over. A new headmaster had come with an ear for music, and the riot of melody that surged from the V. A table seemed to him not only blasphemous, but also inartistic. And so hymn-singing stopped, and only a few prayers were read instead.

On this particular evening the Chief was in high spirits. It was characteristic of his indomitable kindliness and optimism that, though he ended every term in a state of exhaustion, having strained his energy and endurance to the breaking-point, he invariably began the new term in a spirit of geniality and hope. It was not till years later that Gordon came to understand the depth of unselfish idealism that burned behind the quiet modesty of the Chief; but even at first sight the least impressionable boy was conscious of being under the influence of an unusual personality. There was nothing of the theatrical pedagogue about him; he surrounded himself with no trappings of a proud authority. His voice was gentle and persuasive; his smile as winning almost as a child's. The little speech with which he welcomed the House back, and a pa.s.sing allusion, half humorous, half appealing, to the changes in the bath-rooms were perhaps too homely to impress the imagination of the average inhuman boy. But they were the sincere expression of the man--an idealist, with an unfailing faith in human nature, founded in an even deeper faith in Christianity.

When he had gone, Gordon ventured to look round at the sea of faces. On a raised dais was the Sixth Form table. In the middle, haughty, self-conscious, with sleepy-looking but watchful eyes, sat the captain of the House, Lovelace major, in many ways the finest athlete Fernhurst ever produced, who had already got his County cap and played "Rugger"

for Richmond. Gordon had seen him bat at Lord's for the Public Schools _v._ M.C.C., and before he had come to Fernhurst, Lovelace had been the hero of his imagination; ambition could hardly attain a higher pedestal.

There were about twelve in all at the Sixth Form table, of whom the majority were prefects; and no one could leave the hall till one of them went out. After a few minutes' conversation, in which no one ate anything, although plates of hot soup were busily provided, someone got up and went out. Immediately there was a rush towards the door, and Gordon was borne down the long winding pa.s.sage to the foot of the stairs that led to the dormitories. Here, however, for some reason, everyone stopped and began to talk at the top of their voices. Gordon saw no reason for the delay, but thought it better to follow the throng, and waited. As a matter of fact, the last train up from town had just come in. There are some who always demand the last ounce of flesh; there are always those who return by the last possible train, although it stops at every station on the way. Suddenly, however, the House tutor shouted from the top of the stairs, "Lights out in the upper dormitories by nine-thirty," and the procession moved upstairs.

The upper dormitories in the School House were, like most other school dormitories, a dismal spectacle. There was a long pa.s.sage running down from the House tutor's room, and on the left were doors leading into long, bare rooms, with the usual red-quilted beds and the usual wash-hand basins. On the right-hand side was the bathroom. The upper dormitories were occupied by the smaller boys of the House. Once a prefect had been put in charge over each room, but the system did not work very well, and soon came to an abrupt end, so that there was only the House tutor to keep them in order till the prefects went to bed in the lower dormitories an hour later; and then any sound was promptly dealt with. Gordon had been placed in the largest room, which was known as "the nursery." It contained ten beds, and only four of its inhabitants were of more than one term's standing. Among other less enviable claims to fame, it had the reputation of being the finest football-playing dormitory, and every night its members would race up from supper to play their game before the House tutor came to put out lights at nine-fifteen. The new boys took it in turns to keep "cave,"

and it must be owned that for the first few weeks the sentinel rather preferred the role of onlooker to that of player, and found it hard to sympathise with those who were continually flinging abuse at the huge football crowds at Stamford Bridge. This night there was, of course, hardly any ragging. There was so much to talk about, and some faint interest was even taken in the new boys, for two very important-looking young people, Turner and Roberts, swaggered into the dormitories "just to have a squint at the new kids," but after a casual inspection Turner said in a lordly manner, "Good lord! what a crew," and the pair sought better things elsewhere. Turner and Roberts were very insignificant people during the daytime: they were little use at games, and even a year's spasmodic cribbing had only managed to secure them a promotion from the Second Form to the Third. But when the evening came they were indeed great men, and ruled over a small dormitory that contained, besides themselves, only four new boys who looked up to them as G.o.ds and hung on their every word.

But very soon the wanderings of these two gentlemen ceased, and at the sound of the House tutor's tread down the pa.s.sage they fled very ingloriously to their own abode. Mr Parkinson, the House tutor, was one of the most popular masters in the school. He had only just missed his blue at Oxford, and since he had gone down had devoted all his energies to training on the junior members of the House at football and cricket.

He was in rather a hurry this particular evening, as he had to make out the list of studies, but he shook hands with everyone, and asked all the new boys their names before turning out the lights, with instructions not to kick up too much row.

At last Gordon was at rest. For ten hours at least he would not have to worry about anything. He lay back in bed contentedly and listened to the conversation. As was natural, the talk was at first only about the holidays, but it soon drifted round to school politics, and one Bradford began to hold forth on the composition of the Fifteen, as if he was the captain's bosom friend. To Gordon, of course, most of the names mentioned signified nothing. He gathered that the great Lovelace was going to be captain and was sure to have rows with Buller the games master, but besides this he picked up very little. Gradually the conversation turned on individuals, and especially on a certain Meredith, who was apparently a double-first, with a reputation that did not end on the cricket pitch.

"You know I think Meredith goes a bit too far at times," came a voice from the middle of the room.

Bradford rose at once. "What the h.e.l.l do you mean? Meredith go too far?

Why, he is a splendid wicket-keeper, and far and away the finest half-back in the school. You must allow a good deal to a blood like him."

"Oh, I know he is a magnificent athlete and all that, but don't you think he does rather a lot of harm in the House?"

"Harm? Who to?"