The Loom of Youth Part 6

"I heard that there was a bit of a row on," said Hunter. "I couldn't quite make out what about.... Oh, by Jove, that's him."

Jeffries' voice was heard down the pa.s.sage: "Mansell."

A voice answered him: "Here, No. 34."

Jeffries was heard running upstairs; he entered looking very dejected.

"Hullo! Cheer up!" shouted Mansell. "I shouldn't have thought you could have run like that after this afternoon's game. Where've you been?"

"I say ... I'm in the deuce of a row."

There was a shriek of laughter. Jeffries was always in a row; and he always exaggerated its importance.

"Don't laugh. It's no d.a.m.ned joke. I've got bunked."

Silence suddenly fell on the group.

"But ... what the h.e.l.l have you been doing?"

"Chief's found out all about me and Fitzroy, and I've got to go!"

"But I never thought there was really anything in that," said Gordon. "I thought----"

"Oh, well, there was. I know I'm an awful swine and all that----Oh, it's pretty d.a.m.nable; and the Three c.o.c.k, too! I believe I should have got my House cap!... I wasn't so dusty to-day--and I heard Armour say, as he came off the field----d.a.m.n, what the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l does it matter what Armour said? It's over now. I just got across for a minute to see you men.... I said I wanted a book.... Lord, I can't believe it...."

When he stopped speaking there was again a dead silence. None of the three had been brought face to face with such a tragedy before. Never, Gordon thought, had the Greek idea of Nemesis seemed so strong.

Hunter broke the silence.

"What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. I shall go home, and then, I suppose, I shall have to go to France or Germany, or perhaps some crammer. I don't know or care ...

it's bound to be pretty rotten...."

He half smiled.

"My G.o.d, and it's d.a.m.ned unfair," Mansell said suddenly. "There are jolly few of us here any better than you, and look at the bloods, every one of them as fast as the devil, and you have to go just because----Oh, it's d.a.m.ned unfair."

Then Jeffries' wild anger, the anger that had made him so brilliant an athlete, burst out: "Unfair? Yes, that's the right word; it is unfair.

Who made me what I am but Fernhurst? Two years ago I came here as innocent as Caruthers there; never knew anything. Fernhurst taught me everything; Fernhurst made me wors.h.i.+p games, and think that they alone mattered, and everything else could go to the deuce. I heard men say about bloods whose lives were an open scandal, 'Oh, it's all right, they can play football.' I thought it was all right too. Fernhurst made me think it was. And now Fernhurst, that has made me what I am, turns round and says, 'You are not fit to be a member of this great school!'

and I have to go. Oh, it's fair, isn't it?"

He dropped exhausted into a chair. After a pause he went on:

"Oh, well, it's no use grousing. I suppose if one hits length b.a.l.l.s on the middle stump over square leg's head one must run the risk of being bowled; and I didn't believe in sticking in and doing nothing. 'Get on or get out,' and, well, I've got out." He laughed rather hysterically.

Again silence.

Slowly Jeffries got up.

"Well, good-bye, you men." He shook hands. As he opened the door he paused for a second, laughed to himself: "Oh, it's funny, b.l.o.o.d.y funny,"

he murmured. "Not fit for Fernhurst.... b.l.o.o.d.y funny." He laughed again, bitterly. The door closed slowly.

Jeffries' footsteps could be heard on the stairs. They grew fainter; the door leading to the Chief's side of the House slammed. Down the study pa.s.sage a gramophone struck up _Florrie was a Flapper_.

In Study 34 there was an awful stillness.

That evening on the way down to supper Gordon overheard Armour say to Meredith:

"What a fool that man Jeffries is, getting bunked, and mucking up the grovel. d.a.m.ned a.s.s, the man is."

Meredith agreed.

Gordon didn't care very much just now about the result of a House match.

He had lost a friend. Armour had lost a cog in a machine.

As was expected, the Three c.o.c.k proved a terribly one-sided game. The House played pluckily, and for the first half kept the score down to eight points; but during the last twenty minutes it was quite impossible to keep out the strong outhouse combination. The side became demoralised, and went absolutely to pieces. Armour did not give a single House cap.

After the Three c.o.c.k there was a period of four weeks during which the best athletes trained for the sports, while the rest of the school played hockey. It was generally considered a sort of holiday after the stress of house matches. Usually it served its purpose well, but for the welfare of the House this year it was utterly disastrous. The whole house was in a highly strung, discontented state; it had nothing to work for; it had only failures to look back upon. The result was a general opposition to authority. For a week or so there was a continuous row going on in the studies. Window-frames were broken; chairs were smashed; nearly every day one or other member of the House was hauled before the Chief, for trouble of some sort. But things did not reach a real head till one night in hall, just before Palm Sunday. There was a lecture for the Sixth Form; Armour was taking hall; and the only prefect in the studies was Sandham, who had a headache and had got leave off the lecture. It did not take long for the good news to spread round the studies that only "the c.o.c.kroach" was about.

The first sign of trouble was a continual sound of opening doors. Archie was rus.h.i.+ng round, stirring up strife; then there came a sound of many voices from the entrance of the studies, where were the fire hose and the gas meter. Suddenly the gas was turned out throughout the whole building, and pandemonium broke out.

It would be impossible to describe the tumult made by a whole house that was inspired by only one idea: the desire to make a noise. The voice of Sandham rose in a high-pitched wail over and again above the uproar; but it was pitch dark, he could see none of the offenders. Then all at once there was peace again, the lights went up, and everyone was quietly working in his study. It had been admirably worked out. Archie was "some" organiser.

For the time being the matter ended; but in a day or two rumours of the rebellion had reached Clarke. Strong steps had to be taken; and Clarke was not the man to s.h.i.+rk his duty.

That evening after prayers he got up and addressed the House.

"I have been told that two nights ago, when I was absent, there was a most unseemly uproar in the studies. I am not going into details; you all know quite well what I mean. I want anyone who a.s.sisted in the disturbance to stand up."

There was not a move. The idea that the Public School boy's code of honour forces him to own up at once is entirely erroneous. Boys only own up when they are bound to be found out; they are not quixotic.

"Well, then, as no one has spoken, I shall have to take forcible measures. Everyone above IV. A (for the Lower School did their preparation in the day-room) will do me a hundred lines every day till the end of the term. Thank you."

That night there was loud cursing. Clarke had hardly a supporter, the other prefects, with the exception of Ferguson, who did not count for much in the way of things, agreed with Meredith, who said:

"If the c.o.c.kroach can't keep order, how can Clarke expect there should be absolute quiet? It's the Chief's fault for making such prefects.

d.a.m.ned silly, I call it."

The term did not end without a further row. There had been from time immemorial a system by which corps clothes were common property.

Everyone flung them in the middle of the room on Tuesday after parade; the matron sorted them out after a fas.h.i.+on; but most people on the next Tuesday afternoon found themselves with two tunics and no trousers, or two hats and only one puttee. But no one cared. The person who had two tunics flung one in the middle of the floor, and then went in search of some spare trousers. Everyone was clothed somehow in the end. There was always enough clothes to go round. There was bound to be at least ten people who had got leave off. It was a convenient socialism.

But one day FitzMorris turned up on parade in a pair of footer shorts, a straw hat, and a First Eleven blazer. He was a bit of a nut, and finding his clothes gone, went on strangely garbed, merely out of curiosity to see what would happen. A good deal did happen.

As soon as the corps was dismissed there was a clothes inspection. And the garments of FitzMorris were found distributed on various bodies.

Clarke again addressed the House. Anyone in future discovered wearing anyone else's clothes would be severely dealt with. But the House was not to be outdone. Every single name was erased from every single piece of clothing: identification was impossible. FitzMorris turned up at the next parade with one puttee missing, and a tunic that could not meet across his chest. There was another inspection, but this time it revealed nothing. Everyone swore that he was wearing his own clothes; there was nothing to prove that he was not. For the time Clarke was discomfited.