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Title: First Childhood
Date of first publication: 1934
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Constable, April 1934 (Second printing)
Author: Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (1883-1950)
Date first posted: 1 January 2008
Date last updated: 1 January 2008
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #55

This ebook was produced by:
Mark Bear Akrigg and Robert Morrow




 [Frontispiece: Arley]




  FIRST CHILDHOOD

  BY
  LORD BERNERS




  CONSTABLE & CO LTD
  LONDON




  PUBLISHED BY
  _Constable and Company Ltd._
  LONDON

  

  _Oxford University Press_
  BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS

  

  _The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited_
  TORONTO


  _First published February 1934_
  _Reprinted . . April 1934_


  _Printed in Great Britain by_
  RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED
  BUNGAY
  _Suffolk_




    TO

    ROBERT HEBER-PERCY

    WHOSE KNOWLEDGE OF ORTHOGRAPHY
    AND LITERARY STYLE HAS PROVED
    INVALUABLE.




CONTENTS

    I. THE SCREEN
    II. THE INHABITANTS OF ARLEY
    III. THE FAIRY GODMOTHER
    IV. LADY BOURCHIER
    V. MY PARENTS
    VI. INTRODUCTION TO EUTERPE
    VII. ALTHREY
    VIII. MOTHER AND CHILD
    IX. NESTA
    X. NEIGHBOURS
    XI. EDUCATIONAL
    XII. THE FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL
    XIII. SADISTIC INTERLUDE
    XIV. ELMLEY
    XV. GAMES AND LITERATURE
    XVI. BOXHILL
    XVII. SUMMER HOLIDAYS
    XVIII. MASTERS AND BOYS
    XIX. DIVERSIONS
    XX. THE SCHOOL CONCERT
    XXI. THE EASTER TERM
    XXII. ON THE ROOF
    XXIII. THE BIBLE-THROWING EPISODE
    XXIV. DISSOLVING VIEW
    XXV. EPILOGUE




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    Arley _Frontispiece_ (_Drawn from a photograph by Rex
    Whistler_)
    Family Group
    Myself Aged Five
    Lady Bourchier
    My Mother
    My Father
    Mother and Child
    Myself Aged Eight




I

THE SCREEN


I can remember very vividly the first time I became aware of
my existence; how for the first time I realised that I was a
sentient human being in a perceptible world. I seem to have
acquired this state of self-consciousness very much in the
way in which one masters the technique of riding a bicycle
or of performing some trick of juggling, when, at a given
moment and without any apparent reason, it is suddenly found
that the thing can be done.

This awakening of my perception was not brought about by any
very remarkable incident. There was no salamander in the
fire, no tolling of bells to announce some famous victory or
the accession of a monarch. Much as it would enhance the
interest of my story and lend it a touch of the picturesque,
a strict regard for truth forbids me to connect the
circumstance with any occurrence of national or even of
local importance. The conditions in which this epoch-making
event in my mental career took place could not possibly have
been more trivial. I was merely standing beside a table in
the library at Arley, when, all at once, what had hitherto
been a blurred background became distinct, just as when
someone who is shortsighted puts on spectacles. Objects and
individuals assumed definite shapes, grouping themselves
into an ordered whole, and from that moment I understood
that I formed part of it--without, of course, a full
premonition of all that this exactly entailed. The
commonplace features of this first landmark in my experience
remain clearly recorded in my mind's eye; the massive
mahogany table with its cloth of crimson velvet, the fat
photograph album with gilt clasps that could be locked up as
though it were a receptacle for obscene pictures, whereas in
reality it contained nothing worse than family portraits;
the china bowl full of Christmas roses, slightly
frost-bitten as those flowers usually are, a pastel portrait
of my grandmother as a girl; in the middle distance my
grandmother herself, my mother and a few aunts and, in the
doorway, my nurse waiting to take me out for a walk. An
ensemble which, you will agree, was entirely devoid of any
kind of poignancy, although it may have had a certain charm
as a Victorian conversation piece.

     *     *     *     *     *

People I have questioned on the subject of the first
awakening of their consciousness, have proved strangely
uninformative. They could in most cases remember some
particular incident that had occurred at an early stage in
their lives, but none of them were able to recall the exact
moment in which they had realised for the first time that
they were human beings. Some even confessed that, as far as
they knew, it had never happened to them at all. And I
daresay they have managed to get through life just as
happily.

The phenomenon I have described took place when I was three
and a half years old. Up to that point my life had not been
wholly uneventful. I had travelled to Malta and back, I had
been dropped into the Mediterranean by my nurse, and had
appeared at a children's party attired as the Infant
Bacchus. But, as far as my memory goes, these things have
passed into oblivion. They lie buried in my subconsciousness
and I can only be thankful that they do not seem to have
given rise to any very serious complexes, inhibitions or
repressions.

We are told, however, that the things which happen to us
after our birth are of less importance in the moulding of
our character than those that occur during our prenatal
history, and that it is in this mysterious, elusive period
that the impulses are determined which drive us through our
brief span of life. With regard to heredity I am unable to
discover any very evident genealogy for my own character. My
ancestors, for several generations back, appear to have been
country squires or business men with recreations of an
exclusively sporting nature; although, of course, it is
quite possible that there may have been among them a few
artistic ladies who painted in water-colours, visited Italy
or played on the harp. It appears that, many years ago, some
gipsy blood came into the family. The fact was hushed up
more or less successfully, but nevertheless there have been
indications that it has continued to flow, like a
subterranean stream, coming now and then to the surface with
disconcerting results.

As for my immediate ancestry I am unable to trace any single
one of my distinctive traits to my grandparents, and still
less to either of my parents. The only conclusive fact that
I have learnt about heredity is that, in the later Victorian
era, there were certain disadvantages in being born a sport
(in the biological sense) in an exclusively sporting
environment.

     *     *     *     *     *

I was born in 1883 at Arley, the home of my maternal
grandparents, and it was here that most of my early
childhood was spent. Arley was a huge neo-Gothic house of
grey stone, built towards the end of the eighteenth century.
It was a little like Strawberry Hill in appearance and, if
not so airy and fantastic in its architecture, was quite as
adequately turreted and castellated. Its atmosphere was
highly romantic and I think that Horace Walpole, Monk Lewis
or the authoress of _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ would have
approved of it. It was surrounded by a very lovely park,
undulating and well-timbered, a wide valley through which
the river Severn flowed. The house itself stood on a height
overlooking the river, and the gardens were laid out with
slopes and stone balustrades descending to the water's edge.
The most striking feature of the park was a range of heavily
wooded hills following the line of the river in the
direction of Southbridge, the picturesque and rather
foreign-looking local town. This range was known as the
Terrace. It was an earthly paradise for children, and the
precipitous sandstone cliffs that stood out here and there
from among the trees provided an inexhaustible field for
exploration and adventure.

One of these cliffs appealed strongly to my childish
imagination. It was known as the Tarpeian Rock, the name
being no doubt a relic of the classical taste of a bygone
generation. It was a sheer wall of red sandstone encrusted
with lichen and overhung with tall fir trees. The
fascination the Tarpeian Rock exercised over me was due, no
doubt, to an early craving for the "terrible and sublime,"
together with a certain interest aroused by the sadistic
associations of the name. I remember being bitterly
disappointed when I learnt that Tarpeia, instead of having
been hurled from a rock as I had imagined, had in reality
been crushed by the shields of the Sabine soldiers who had
meanly taken advantage of an ambiguous phrase.

However, the Tarpeian Rock was only one among the many
interesting things to be found in the park. There was, for
instance, the little pool known as the "bottomless pit,"
where an attempt had once been made to find coal, and now
the disused mine-shaft was filled to the brim with stagnant
water. It stood in a coppice of gloomy aspect in which, so
it was rumoured, no birds ever built their nests; a fact
that greatly increased the sinister reputation of the place.
But I am afraid that to anyone unacquainted with the legend
of its bottomlessness and its nestlessness it would have
seemed just a very ordinary pond.

The Ice-house provided another thrill. In the days before
the general use of artificial ice, the frozen surface of one
of the pools would be broken up every winter and stored away
in a circular, semi-underground chamber covered with a thick
layer of bracken. Once or twice, as a special treat, I was
allowed to have the door of the Ice-house opened so that I
might peer into the chilly depths, where the ice we had
skated upon lay slumbering in its bracken nest until the
time when it should emerge once more to cool our drinks and
provide us with sherbets and ices.

But it is in Arley itself that the most vivid of my early
reminiscences are concentrated. The house, with its
stairways and passages, its mysterious nooks, cupboards and
attics, each place having a distinct atmosphere of its own,
formed a microcosm where I was able to find ample
nourishment for my budding tastes and sensibilities.

The two rooms I preferred above all others were the library
and the drawing-room. These two rooms contained the greatest
and most varied horde of treasures.

I loved the library for its rows of tawny-coloured books in
the high Gothic bookcases surmounted by niches containing
the busts of Eminent Men of Letters (or were they Roman
Emperors?); its elaborate gas chandeliers with their
luminous globes like gigantic incandescent fruit on Gothic
branches; the massive marble fireplace with the porphyry
urns on the mantelpiece; the cavernous leather armchairs and
the silver reading lamps with their bright green glass
shades. The whole room seemed to radiate warmth and security
in those snug Victorian days.

The drawing-room appealed to me in a different way. It was
gayer, more feminine, more frivolous. Here the Gothic
decorations were less austere and the traceries were picked
out with light blue and gold. From the fan-vaulted ceiling,
like an inverted fountain, there hung a huge crystal
chandelier with drops and pendants that flashed and
glittered with rainbow hues and were reflected by the tall
mirrors between the windows. The curtains were looped up in
a labyrinth of folds and tassels. The chairs and sofas of
pale blue satin were plentifully punctuated with buttons,
and there was a kind of double settee in the form of an S,
called a "Sociable." (Anything less conducive to sociability
it would be difficult to imagine, however advantageous it
might have proved to people who were proud of their
profiles.) In one of the corners of the room stood a
monstrous grand piano, which seemed to be used more as a
repository for odds and ends than for any musical purpose.
In front of the fireplace lay a thick white woolly hearthrug
and on one side there stood a fire-shield made of a stuffed
Himalayan pheasant with outspread wings, whose iridescent
breast and plumed tiara used to fill me with joy.

But what fascinated me more than any other object in the
room was a tall folding screen of brightly-coloured pictures
cut out and pasted on at random, the joint handiwork of my
mother and her sisters who, between them, must have
mutilated a whole library of illustrated books and coloured
prints in the course of its construction.

Under a transparent layer of yellow varnish there lay an
entrancing world of flowers, birds and landscapes all
jumbled together in kaleidoscopic confusion. Here you could
see "Doves of Siam, Lima mice and legless Birds of Paradise"
and countless other things as well. Views of Italian lakes
and towns were framed in sprays of orchids. Against a
background of Swiss mountains, chamois and chalets,
glittering humming-birds thrust their rapier-like beaks into
the calyxes of tropical flowers. A gigantic green and
crimson parakeet appeared to have alighted on the spire of
Cologne cathedral, whilst a company of medival knights on
richly caparisoned horses caracoled in front of the Sphinx
and the Pyramids. The whole thing was without rhyme or
reason, but it conjured up a magical vision of some
fantastic fairy paradise and, whenever I got a chance, I
would creep into the drawing-room and remain before this
screen in rapt attention, vainly endeavouring to memorise
the innumerable objects depicted on it.

Such was the impression the screen made upon me in my early
childhood. But when, many years afterwards, I came upon it
again, stored away in a lumber room whither the purist taste
of a later age had banished it, I was amazed to find that it
was composed for the most part of political caricatures and
sporting scenes. The well-remembered continental landscapes,
the exotic birds and tropical flowers formed but a
comparatively small portion of the whole. Neither did they,
as one might suppose, feature more especially in the lower
panels of the screen which, in those days, would have lain
within my natural range of vision. In fact, in order to get
at some of them I must have been obliged to stand on a
chair.

The discovery was a surprising one, and it would seem to
prove that at the time when the screen aroused my infantile
enthusiasm, an inborn selective force must have already been
at work, concentrating on certain things and excluding
others, a selective force which continued to function in
spite of the strenuous efforts of parents, nurses,
governesses and schoolmasters to divert its activity into
channels more favoured by themselves.




II

THE INHABITANTS OF ARLEY


Places, when I think of them, have a way of connecting
themselves in my memory with definite aspects of weather and
with certain times of the day. Whenever I think of Arley I
invariably see it under grey, wintry skies and in the
afternoon. Sometimes these climatic and temporal
associations seem to be merely arbitrary, but in this
particular instance they are probably due to the fact that
it was in the winter and at this time of day that the
emotions the place aroused in me were most intense. It was
always in the late afternoon that my mother and I used to
arrive at Arley. The most vivid emotion is that of immediate
anticipation, and I can even to this day recall the thrill
of delight I always used to feel when, upon approaching the
house, I caught the first glimpse of its grey battlemented
towers looming through the trees; the delicious anticipation
of tea in the library after a long and tedious journey, of
seeing my small cousins again after a protracted period of
loneliness, and of all the Christmas fun that was to follow.

[Illustration: Family Group]

The station was about a quarter of a mile from the house on
the other side of the river. One crossed over in a
ferry-boat, a method of approach which added a further
excitement to the arrival. When the river was flooded, as it
very often was at that time of year, the crossing was even
fraught with a certain amount of danger, and one day the
boat actually capsized, hurling passengers and their luggage
into the swirling waters. After this incident the ferry-boat
was replaced by a handsome, but less romantic, suspension
bridge.

The winter visits to Arley were always the pleasantest. At
that time of year the house was enlivened by the presence of
four or five small cousins, children of about the same age
as myself. An atmosphere of festivity prevailed, and I was
allowed more licence than at other seasons when I stayed
there alone with my mother.

My grandmother, Mrs. Farmer, was all that one could possibly
wish a grandmother to be. In the eighteen-eighties women
used to assume the aspect of a grandmother as soon as the
first grandchild was born, whereas in 1930 they would be
much more likely to celebrate the event by having their
faces lifted and spending the evening in a night-club,
triumph over old age being one of the many remarkable
advances of the present generation over the last.

Mrs. Farmer, who, at that time, cannot have been much more
than fifty, certainly made every effort to look the part of
a grandmother. She always dressed herself in ample flowing
gowns of sombre-hued silk or satin. On her head she wore a
lace cap (as did also my other grandmother, Lady Bourchier,
but with a vastly different effect). Her silvery hair was
parted symmetrically over her forehead. Altogether she had
the air of an elderly Madonna, placid and matriarchal. Her
early life had been singularly exempt from excesses of joy
and sorrow, and her features were equally free from the
traces that such excesses leave. Although her views on life
were limited and rather rigid, she had never been known to
utter an unkind word or a hasty judgment. She was
essentially one of those whose sober thoughts had never
learnt to stray. Her answers were so soft that they turned
away not only wrath but many other things besides. Virtue,
backed by charm, is more successful as a repressive
influence than when virtue stands alone and, in the presence
of Mrs. Farmer, sentiments and impulses that were quite
reasonable in themselves often had to be stifled because
they were not strictly orthodox. This is perhaps the only
charge that could be brought against her, if indeed it be a
charge at all; for most people will agree that it is a good
thing for revolutionaries to control their opinions within
the home-circle and, in any case, in our home-circle there
were no revolutionaries to speak of.

In the dining-room at Arley there hung a full-length
portrait of my grandmother, painted about 1870, which showed
her dressed in a rather elaborate evening gown of the
period, smiling benevolently in complete disregard of a
terrific thunderstorm that was approaching her in the
background. The picture might, in fact, have stood for an
allegory of the later Victorian era.

One Christmas Eve, as we were in the very act of drinking
her health, this picture suddenly fell to the ground, an
accident which very naturally cast a gloom, filling us with
obvious forebodings. But, as my grandmother continued to
live for another thirty years or so, I can only imagine that
Providence relented or else that a mistake had been made by
the angel in charge of Prognostics.

Mrs. Farmer's early life had, as I have said, been
singularly free from care but, later on, a shadow crept into
her hitherto sunny existence. My grandfather, who had always
been the sanest, most normal of men, was stricken down by a
strange mental affliction. I never quite understood what it
was and what had caused it. By my grandmother and by the
rest of the family it was looked upon as an "act of
God"--though what particular sin the poor old man could
possibly be supposed to be expiating God only knows. He had
proved himself a devoted husband and an excellent father.
But in those days every calamity that was not properly
understood, from an earthquake to a blunder on the part of
the Government, was attributed to the capricious temperament
of the Deity. And that is no doubt why so many people, who
were outwardly religious, detested Him in secret.

My grandfather used to sit all day long in a darkened room.
From his lips there came forth a never ending stream of
groans and curses. His cries were often so loud that they
could be heard all over the house. There were moments when
he seemed able to control himself but, although he sometimes
ceased to cry out, I never saw him smile or take an interest
in anything. At meals he always occupied his place at the
head of the table, even when there were visitors, and every
Sunday he went to church. But these public appearances
involved many anxious moments, and I remember him once, in
the parish church at Arley, bursting out into so violent a
storm of expletives in the middle of the sermon that the
service had to be hastily concluded.

The curious thing was that he should have been allowed by
the family to continue the ordinary routine of daily life
just as though he were normal. I suppose the patriarchal
idea was so firmly established that, so long as he continued
to live and his physical condition allowed him to move
about, he was still looked upon as nominally the head of the
house and was treated as such.

Apart from the natural awe I felt for a grandparent, I do
not remember ever being at all frightened by his abnormal
state. One might have thought that those dreadful groans and
curses issuing from that darkened room would have filled a
child's heart with fear, but both I and my cousins soon grew
accustomed to hearing them. We knew that it was "only
Grandpapa." I even remember listening with curiosity to some
of the more peculiar oaths he occasionally employed,
although I never attempted to make any practical use of them
myself in daily conversation. I suppose I must have realised
that such rhetorical delicacies were exclusively for the use
of grown-ups. However, in the privacy of the nursery, I
would sometimes entertain my small cousins by giving them a
realistic imitation of my grandfather's peculiarities, a
performance which relied for its effectiveness chiefly on
the fact of its being in the worst possible taste and, if
overheard by nurses or parents, of its being immediately and
severely punished.

Besides my grandparents, there were two other permanent
residents at Arley, Uncle Luke and Aunt Flora. They were
both of them unmarried. Uncle Luke, it was rumoured, had
suffered in his youth from what is known as "an unfortunate
love affair." Whether the young lady he had been engaged to
had died or whether she had jilted him I never was able to
discover, but anyhow the result was "unfortunate."
Incidentally I recommend the fiction of "an unfortunate love
affair" to anyone wishing to remain a bachelor without
being interfered with. It excites compassion among the
sentimental and affords a protection against too insistent
matchmakers. Uncle Luke never married nor did he show signs
of being seriously attracted by any woman during the
remainder of his life.

Aunt Flora was a chronic invalid. In her youth she had met
with a hunting accident which had injured her spine and
obliged her to spend most of her time reclining on a sofa in
her sitting-room. For although she was able to stand up and
was even able to walk about a little with the aid of a
stick, any prolonged movement exhausted her. She was
extremely pretty, and before the accident occurred she had
been passionately fond of every form of social gaiety. Mrs.
Matchett, the housekeeper, used to say that if only she had
been able to get about like other girls she would
undoubtedly have made a brilliant marriage.

I was devoted to Aunt Flora and, had I been allowed to do
so, I would willingly have spent most of my time in her
company. She occupied a little suite of rooms on the ground
floor of one of the towers. The room she sat in was
octagonal in shape and had high French windows opening
directly on to the garden. The windows faced south, and it
was one of the sunniest rooms in the house. Even on grey,
wintry days its yellow wall-paper and striped hangings of
apricot-coloured silk gave an impression of sunshine.

Aunt Flora loved flowers and birds. The tables were always
laden with flowering plants, and in one of the windows there
stood a large domed cage that looked like the model of a
mosque made of wire, in which there fluttered and chirped a
number of brightly-coloured waxbills and singing finches.
What with the fragrance of the flowers, the twittering of
the birds, the gay wall-paper and Aunt Flora's own
flower-like personality, the place always seemed to me a
haven of perpetual spring. Just outside the windows there
grew a shrub of the early-blossoming chimonanthus.
(Winter-sweet it was called in the days before gardeners
grew so refined.) The tiny mauve and yellow blossoms
nestling in the leafless branches always used to remind me
of Aunt Flora herself. She had very fair hair and her white
skin had a slightly shrivelled appearance as though it were
almost too delicate for the cold, northern climate in which
she seemed to be existing in a state of precarious
acclimatisation.

Aunt Flora was not very clever, but she had an appealing,
bird-like silliness that, in its way, was a good deal more
attractive than a great many other people's intelligence.
She read very little, neither did she care for any of the
usual indoor occupations. She was entirely dependent on
company for her amusement. Thus, instinctively, she would
exercise all the charm within her power to retain her
visitors as long as possible, and the sensation that she was
not bored, and indeed never could be bored, infected them
with an equal desire to stay.

Debarred, as she was, from participation in any wider form
of social entertainment, she retained nevertheless a passion
for clothes. She would spend as long a time as she was
able--before exhaustion compelled her to stop--in front of
her mirror, rather pathetically trying on new dresses and
hats that were sent to her from Paris and London. She often
allowed me to help her to undo the parcels that arrived from
the dressmakers and, with an almost equal delight, we would
examine the delicate fabrics, the feathers and the
artificial flowers as they emerged from their wrappings of
tissue-paper. One day she made me a present of a bird of
paradise plume which I religiously preserved as though it
were a holy relic for many months, until at last it went the
way of most of one's childish treasures and mysteriously
disappeared. Apart from purely sthetic reasons I was
attracted, I suppose, by this finery because it seemed to
afford a glimpse into that glittering realm of festivity I
vaguely apprehended from the illustrated papers and from
overheard fragments of conversation. Aunt Flora appreciated
my admiration, and one evening she put on, for my benefit, a
dress she had worn some years previously at Court, before
her accident had obliged her to retire from the gay world.
As she stood before me in the lamplight with curling ostrich
feathers on her head and a long, billowy train of some
transparent, silvery material, I felt almost afraid. It was
as though she had been transformed into some strange,
unearthly being from another world.

Like all children, I used to ask a great many questions.
Aunt Flora was patient in answering them, but she was
inclined to take her revenge by giving me information that
was incorrect or misleading. When I asked her what was
really the matter with my grandfather, she told me quite
gravely that he was bewitched, that he was under a spell. I
asked her if a counter-spell, a magic charm, could be found,
would he get all right again? She said Yes.

The idea lay for some days incubating in my brain until one
day I happened to read in a volume of Russian Fairy Stories
about a man who was delivered from a ban the Ice-Maiden had
laid upon him by being crowned with a wreath of snowdrops.
It seemed a simple matter. I asked my grandmother if it had
ever been tried and was told not to talk nonsense. But by
that time I had already discovered that, when grown-ups told
one not to talk nonsense, it was in nine cases out of ten
merely a device for setting aside an embarrassing
suggestion. I began to harbour the gravest suspicions, and
finally became convinced that, for some reason or other, my
poor grandfather was being deliberately held in thrall.

Come what might, I was determined to make the experiment,
which was facilitated by its happening to be the snowdrop
season. I gathered a large bunch of those self-righteous
little flowers and, with the help of some wire and some
cotton thread, I managed to construct a clumsy wreath.
Secreting myself in the library with my talisman, I waited
until the sound of snoring announced the fact that my
grandfather had fallen asleep. I then stole into his room on
tiptoe, succeeded in deftly placing the wreath on the old
gentleman's head, and returned to my hiding-place to await
the result.

Shortly afterwards I heard my grandmother enter the room.
Her startled exclamation at the strange vision of my
grandfather sitting with his mouth open, snoring loudly and
decked out like Ophelia, must have roused him from his
slumbers, for it was followed by a bellow of rage and a
great commotion. I guessed that my experiment had failed. My
hopes of being acclaimed as a miracle-worker were dashed to
the ground. I was now terrified by what I had done, for I
realised that, after having mentioned the subject of
snowdrops to my grandmother, I should at once be suspected.
I fled to Aunt Flora's room as to the horns of the altar,
and besought her protection. She was, I fancy, amused by my
account of the unfortunate experiment, and no doubt she felt
a trifle guilty for having put the idea into my head, and
for having been indirectly the cause of all the trouble.
Knowing also that, however good my intentions may have been,
they would most certainly be misjudged by the rest of the
family, she willingly undertook my defence, and I got off
with a caution never again under any circumstances to enter
my grandfather's room without permission.




III

THE FAIRY GODMOTHER


Another and rather similar incursion into the realm of magic
had consequences that were equally disastrous.

[Illustration: Myself Aged Five]

As a child I was not encouraged to believe in the more
frivolous elements of the supernatural world. On the few
occasions when my mother or my nurse had told me fairy
tales, their narrative style had seemed to be almost
deliberately lacking in conviction. But, in spite of this
materialistic policy on their part, I succeeded in amassing
quite a substantial collection of fairy-story books, Grimm,
Perrault, Madame d'Aulnoy, a volume of Russian folk-lore and
an edition of the _Arabian Nights_, in which the fact that
the text had been so carefully expurgated that it resembled
a plum-pudding without the plums was amply compensated for
by the Oriental voluptuousness of the illustrations. These
books I used to devour with ecstatic enjoyment until at last
I became completely engrossed in the fantastic world they
chronicled. But I remember that I was always more interested
in the pageantry of fairyland than in the personality of its
inhabitants. In the story of Cinderella I was far more
thrilled by the pumpkin coach, by the glass slipper, than by
the young woman who rode in the former and wore the latter.
Ali Baba meant less to me than the cave of the Forty
Thieves; I thought more of the Chinese setting of Aladdin,
of the Lamp, of the Palace of the Genii than of Aladdin
himself; Rapunzel remained a vague and hazy figure while I
could visualise clearly the tower from which she let down
her hair.

Mrs. Matchett, the housekeeper at Arley, held different
views to those of my nurse and my mother. She thought that
it was right and salutary for children to believe in
fairies. She used to regale me with the most incredibly
nonsensical tales. Not content with merely playing the part
of Mother Goose, she actually contrived to bring into my
life, for a short while, one of the denizens of fairyland.

Although Mrs. Matchett was a squat, Gamp-like little person,
she possessed nevertheless a certain Victorian dignity of
deportment. She had a great admiration for my grandmother
and a still greater one for Queen Victoria. These two women
were her models as regards both costume and manners. The
solid respectability of Victorian furniture was reflected in
her attire, and her protuberant bust had the tight rotundity
of an over-stuffed sofa cushion. I often longed to slap it.
The act, I felt sure, would have afforded the same sort of
tactile pleasure as the stroking of velvet or marble.

I am afraid Mrs. Matchett was rather a snob. She would
pronounce the names of titled personages with an unction
akin to the syrups she kept in jars on the shelves of her
cupboards together with boxes of candies, spices and
crystallised fruits. In the same cupboards she treasured up
ornaments from the wedding, christening and birthday cakes
of the various members of the family; flowers, fruit,
cornucopias and figures made of some white substance that
looked insidiously like sugar but was in reality a sort of
hard, chalk-like plaster, as I found out to my cost when
once I attempted to eat a particularly luscious-looking
cupid.

Just as Aunt Flora's room was a gilded cage, an ornamental
conservatory for her flower-and-birdlike personality, so was
the housekeeper's room a tea-cosy, a Victorian glass case
for the comfortable, Victorian, four-square Mrs. Matchett.
In the housekeeper's room Time seemed to have been excluded.
The Past had been shaken out, brushed, folded up neatly and
put away in a drawer. The Future, one felt, with all its
dangers and uncertainties, would never venture to come
knocking at the door of so impregnable a stronghold. The air
of solidity and security which everything in that room
exhaled was a defiance to the ravages of Time, and the enemy
itself, represented by an elaborate gilt clock, was
imprisoned and immobilised under a glass dome.

Over the mantelpiece there hung a large photogravure of the
beloved Queen and a smaller one of my grandmother. On a
work-table beside Mrs. Matchett's own particular armchair
reposed her two favourite books, the Peerage and the Bible,
while the centre table with its cloth of scarlet rep was
laden with volumes of the _Leisure Hour_, _Sunday at Home_
and a monumental Cookery Book in which most of the recipes
began with such instructions as "Take two pints of cream,
two dozen eggs and one pint of old liqueur brandy." At all
times of the year, even in the warmest months, there was a
blazing fire in the grate and a kettle simmering on the hob.

From the adjoining still-room there came a delicious smell
of baking bread and hot fresh cakes. But the housekeeper's
room itself had the slightly stuffy atmosphere of an
unventilated eating-place, for it was the custom of the
upper servants to quit the servants' hall at the end of a
meal with their pudding, and eat it there, as a subtle
distinction of their rank.

Mrs. Matchett, as I have said, was my Mother Goose; but,
being a practical woman, a woman of action, she did not
confine herself to mere verbal descriptions of Fairyland.
She invented for my benefit a Fairy Godmother, and she would
speak of her just as though she were a real live person--as
it might be my grandmother or Aunt Flora. This supernatural
being was supposed to dwell behind the wainscoting, from
which she would emerge from time to time and confer benefits
upon those she favoured. Mrs. Matchett was continually
producing gifts, generally of an edible nature, which she
said the Fairy Godmother had left for me. But of my
benefactress herself I was never able to catch even the most
fleeting glimpse. Like events in the novels of Henry James,
she was always "just round the corner."

The actual personality of the Fairy (who, owing to a certain
lack of imagination on the part of her authoress appeared to
me to be not so very different to some of the human beings I
knew, and indeed just a little too much like Mrs. Matchett
herself) interested me less than her alleged supernatural
powers. She was able, I was told, by means of her magic wand
to perform acts of transmutation. She could, if she wished,
transform lumps of coal or common stones into chocolate or
crystallised fruits. If irritated she could also change
human beings into animals and reptiles of the lowest kind.
Small boys who were naughty and disobeyed their elders were
frequently turned into toads. So I imagine that Mrs.
Matchett foresaw the possibility of putting the fiction of
the Fairy Godmother to comminatory uses if necessary.

In response to my reiterated questions about the magic wand,
Mrs. Matchett carried her deception still further into the
regions of reality by actually producing, one day, a staff
covered with silver paper and tipped with a glittering
tinsel star. (It had been used in an amateur Christmas
pantomime performed at Arley a few years before.) Much as I
had been thrilled by the idea of the Fairy Godmother I now
felt that I was in touch with a concrete fact. The exhibit
enraptured me. But, although I was allowed to finger it, the
magic wand was never actually left in my hands, nor did Mrs.
Matchett attempt to perform any miracles with it in my
presence. And so I made up my mind to get possession of it
and to test its powers myself. Excitement blinded me to
reason, and no thought ever entered my head as to whether
the wand would prove effective in other hands than those of
the Fairy and, if so, why she had been so careless as to
leave it behind for Mrs. Matchett or anyone else to get hold
of.

Here, in the shape of a parenthesis, let me introduce my
cousin Emily.

Emily Pearson was a distant cousin. She was an orphan, a
condition which, for one reason and another, seems to excite
sympathy, and my grandmother had befriended her. She used to
come to Arley on long visits, and when she was there she
acted in the capacity of secretary to my grandmother and
helped her to run the house. She was about twenty-five, and
my small cousins and I naturally looked upon her as one of
the grown-ups. We also looked upon her as a very
disagreeable young woman. Indeed we hated her. She was a
spoil-sport and a sneak. She was of small stature, lean and
cross-eyed. She looked a good deal older than her
twenty-five years. She had a rather tight little face with
thin lips and small eyes, and her clothes always seemed to
have a far larger number of buttons than were really
necessary. We were told that her childhood had been an
unhappy one, but we felt it must have been her own fault,
and even if it were not, it was no excuse for her trying to
spoil ours. Her one object in life seemed to be to throw
cold water on anything that anyone suggested, particularly
if it had anything to do with amusement.

Cousin Emily was supposed by the family (who knew nothing
whatever of such matters) to possess musical talents. But,
such as they were, they were very meagre, and contributed
more to diffuse gloom than anything else. She played a few
pieces on the piano and she also sang. She used to shut
herself up in the billiard-room for an hour every day in
order to practise her singing. These manifestations would
generally be the sign for the banging of doors all over the
house, for her voice had a peculiarly penetrating quality;
its high quavering tones would mingle strangely with the
cries and groans of my grandfather. I have often wondered
about her singing, and why she did it. It was perhaps her
own method of communing with God. But what pleasure it can
possibly have afforded either to God or to herself it is
difficult to imagine.

To return to the magic wand. It was not long before I was
able to track it to its secret hiding-place and I managed to
get possession of it during the temporary absence of Mrs.
Matchett. My first thought was for my cousin Emily. If only
I could succeed in turning her into a toad! How marvellous
it would be! How I should go up in the estimation of my
cousins! It was true my grandmother might be angry but, if
the worst came to the worst, I could always restore my
disagreeable cousin to her original form, and at any rate it
would have given her a good lesson.

I found Cousin Emily in the drawing-room, reading.
Stealthily creeping up behind her, I began making what I
imagined to be the requisite cabalistic passes, at the same
time willing with all my might that she should be
transformed into a toad of loathsome aspect. Unluckily she
chanced to look up and catch sight of me in one of the
mirrors. She was, I fancy, rather taken aback and not a
little alarmed by the malignancy of my gestures. She
inquired, with some surprise, what on earth I was doing. I
told her, with bravado, that I was in possession of a magic
wand and that I was about to turn her into a toad. She
snatched it out of my hand and, exclaiming furiously, "Who
has been telling you this nonsense?" went off to report the
matter to my grandmother. I was sent for and put through a
cross-examination ("cross" in every sense of the word), in
the course of which the whole history of the Fairy Godmother
was revealed. Mrs. Matchett was rebuked and the poor fairy,
assailed by universal derision, perished like a poisoned rat
behind the wainscoting.

This unfortunate experiment, following on the affair of the
snowdrops, convinced me that I had no real aptitude for
Magic.




IV

LADY BOURCHIER


My paternal grandmother, Lady Bourchier, was a very
different person to the kindly, angelic-featured Mrs.
Farmer. She was actually one of the most forbidding,
awe-inspiring women I have ever known, and my two
grandmothers might have served as twin allegorical figures
representing the brighter and darker aspects of Divine
Charity. Lady Bourchier was intensely religious and
violently low-church. She went so far as to have herself
described in _Who's Who_ as "distinctly low," an epithet
which must have caused some surprise to those who were
unaware of its sectarian significance.

[Illustration: Lady Bourchier]

While quite a young woman she became acquainted with Lord
Radstock and was "converted" by him. I was told that, in the
unregenerate period before her conversion, she had, like
Saint Augustine, led a frivolous and mundane life, had
enjoyed dancing and social festivities. But I am inclined to
doubt this legend. I feel sure that she must have been born
with the seeds of a baleful asceticism in her heart, for not
even conversion could have succeeded in so permanently
embittering any human being.

Lady Bourchier lived at a place called Stackwell about three
miles from Arley on the other side of the river. It was a
gloomy unattractive house. Originally Elizabethan in style,
it had been deformed by later additions out of all
recognition. It was surrounded by a moat which was generally
half-dry and always rather smelly, and the house was shut in
on all sides by tall fir trees. Even under a blue sky and
when the sun shone its brightest Stackwell looked as grim as
an ogre's castle. I was always thankful that I never had to
stay there often, and never for any length of time.

Lady Bourchier had brought up her children on the principle
that respect is preferable to love. As a precept of
education this may perhaps be valuable, but in her
particular case she succeeded in obtaining neither; her
children merely came to regard her with a sullen aversion.
Anyone so bigoted could hardly inspire respect and she was
lacking in any single lovable quality. On the other hand,
she had a forcible personality and a will of iron. She
dominated and repressed all those with whom she came into
contact. There was something a little tragic about all this
waste of energy. You felt that, if only some interest had
possessed her, other than this narrow intolerant religion
which cramped and stultified her whole being, she might have
been quite a remarkable woman. Even with her total lack of
amenity, she might have distinguished herself in some
capacity for which amenity is not an absolute necessity. She
might have become a Florence Nightingale, a Lady Astor.

Somebody once asked my father if Lady Bourchier were not a
Baroness in her own right. He replied, "Yes, but she is
everything else in her own wrong."

In appearance Lady Bourchier was not unlike Holbein's
portrait of Bloody Mary with just a touch of Charley's Aunt.
In fact her coiffure might have been modelled upon that of
the latter, and she wore a lace cap with two large,
melancholy black bows on it, which always made me think of a
couple of crows perching on the roof of a Methodist chapel.
There was indeed something very peculiar about all her
clothes. Though she usually wore a simple costume of black
silk resembling in style the dresses worn by Queen Victoria
in her later years, the garment was not as simple as it
looked. It appeared to possess the faculty of increasing or
diminishing in volume like the sails of a ship. It was
rumoured that, concealed beneath her skirts, there was an
elaborate system of strings and pulleys for raising her
petticoats off the ground whenever she walked in the garden.
Whether this was the case or not I imagine nobody had ever
ventured to probe. It is certain that, whenever she went out
of doors, her clothes used to assume a curious bunched-up
appearance behind, which made her look like an emu.

In fact my cousins and I always used to refer to her among
ourselves as "The Emu," and I remember that once, when she
took us to visit the Zoo, we contrived to confront her with
the bird itself. Our little joke was not particularly
successful, because she guessed immediately what we were up
to and said with a sour smile, "I suppose you imagine it
looks like me." It was among her many alarming
characteristics that she seemed to be able to read your
inmost thoughts and to be endowed with the same sort of
inquisitorial omniscience as the dour God she worshipped and
with whom she gave one the impression of being on terms of
exclusive amity.

My grandfather, a pleasant easy-going individual with the
air of a Paterfamilias out of one of John Leech's drawings
in _Punch_, was completely under her thumb. He had a mild
liking for politics in which, however, he was never
permitted to indulge. The only subjects Lady Bourchier
allowed to be discussed in her presence were the less
sensational items of general news and those preferably of a
theological nature. It must be confessed she sometimes
appeared to take an interest in local scandals. She seemed
to derive a certain pleasure from hearing instances of other
people's godlessness. It gave her satisfaction, no doubt, to
hear of yet another of God's creatures obviously destined
for Hell.

Whenever conversation strayed into one of the many paths of
which she disapproved, my grandmother had a remarkable
faculty of making her disapproval felt. Without saying a
single word she managed to radiate disapproval. The air
seemed to grow heavy with it, and the most audacious, the
most garrulous talker would wilt and be silent. You may
imagine that conversation under such circumstances was not
likely to attain a very high level of interest.

There was, however, one note of humanity in Lady Bourchier's
nature, and that was her fondness for birds. She used to
encourage robins, tits, nuthatches and sparrows to come to
her windows and be fed. She had succeeded in taming a pair
of blue-tits, so that they would come on to the window-sill
and take food out of her hands. At least that was what she
said. We had to take her word for it because nobody had ever
seen them do it. She used to say rather pointedly that this
famous pair of blue-tits would never come to her if a
stranger were present. In fact she always referred to them
in a mysterious, exclusive fashion rather in the manner in
which Elijah might have spoken of his ravens. However, one
day I was privileged to catch a glimpse of the birds, and I
remember causing a mild sensation by rushing into the
drawing-room where several members of the family were
sitting, and crying out excitedly, "I say! I've just seen
Grandmother's tits!"

Lady Bourchier spent a good deal of her time in paying
minatory visits to the sick and the poor. She would set out
on these charitable raids in a small pony-chaise which she
used to drive herself, armed with soup and propaganda. The
rest of the day she passed in meditation in her grim little
study overlooking the moat. There was always an immense pile
of cheap, ill-bound Bibles on the table and these she would
give away whenever she got a chance. "Let me see, child,
have I given you a Bible?" "Yes, Grandmother," one would
hastily reply. But you never managed to get out of the room
without having one of them thrust into your hand. Disposing
of a bible was no easy matter. It would, of course, be
sacrilegious to burn it. If deliberately left behind or lost
it would invariably be returned because she always took the
precaution of writing one's name and address on the
title-page. I remember once when I dropped one of them into
the moat being horrified to find that it refused to sink and
continued to bob up and down on the surface like a
life-buoy. Even this contingency, I felt, must have been
foreseen by my grandmother and in consequence she had had it
lined with cork.

Before I take leave of Stackwell and its grim chtelaine I
must speak of the dreary rite that took place twice a day
and was known as Family Prayers. I imagine that in 1930
there are very few households where this practice still
lingers. In those days it was customary in nearly every
home. But at Stackwell, family prayers took on a peculiarly
drastic form and the institution seemed to be resented
equally by the family and by the servants. I remember, as a
child, being impressed by the annoyance and ill-feeling it
caused among the domestics, who were obliged to quit
whatever work they were engaged upon, dress themselves up in
tidy clothes and troop into the dining-room in order to sit
upon hard benches for twenty minutes or more, listening to
my grandmother declaiming scriptural exhortations in a voice
that seemed to hold out very little hope of salvation for
the lower classes.

Samuel Butler, in _The Way of All Flesh_, likens the family
prayers of the Pontifex household to a swarm of bees he saw
fruitlessly attacking the painted bunches of flowers on the
wall-paper, "so many of the associated ideas present but the
main idea hopelessly lacking." Of the family prayers at
Stackwell one could not even say that there was a question
of associated ideas. The ceremony appeared to be devised
solely for my grandmother's benefit. It was a sort of daily
rite to emphasise her own intimacy with God at the expense
of her audience.

I think that my grandmother and I were the only two people
who got any real pleasure out of the Stackwell family
prayers, but for vastly different reasons. I have always
taken an almost intoxicating delight in "perilous laughter,"
that is to say laughter which, either from good manners or
fear, has to be controlled at all costs. The kind of
laughter which, on solemn occasions or in the presence of
the great, sometimes wells up within one with such violence
that the human frame is nearly shattered in the course of
its suppression. The vision of that grave row of domestics
sitting bolt upright on the benches opposite to me was
irresistible. I used to try to disturb their deadly
seriousness by making surreptitious grimaces at them, and on
one occasion I scored a memorable triumph by laying on the
place occupied by the butler a notice bearing the words "
Stand for one donkey." This masterpiece of humour was
successful in producing an explosion of muffled snorts, and
one of the footmen was obliged to leave the room with his
handkerchief to his face.

Towards the end of her life my grandmother's reading of
family prayers developed into a sort of macabre farce. With
the gradual failing of her intellect, the collects and
lessons became more and more seasoned with spoonerisms and
every form of ludicrous mistake. I remember her starting off
one morning with the alarming request, "Oh, Lord, bear down
upon us from on high!" and on another occasion she got
horribly mixed up in the prayer in which the words "true
joys" occur, and kept on referring to "Jew's toys." But it
was really more pathetic than funny. Poor Lady Bourchier!
What a dreary, unprofitable existence! If only her religion
had proved some sort of consolation to her instead of merely
serving to fill her soul with bitterness. How different were
my two grandmothers! The one brimming over with the milk of
human kindness, the other soured by the vinegar and gall of
a cramped Protestant intolerance.




V

MY PARENTS


Fox-hunting was the dominant interest in my mother's life.
Horsemanship was the one thing she excelled in. She came of
a hunting family. Her brothers and sisters were crazy about
fox-hunting. Aunt Flora, though practically a cripple, took
a passionate interest in it, and I think her inability to
follow the hounds was an even greater sorrow to her than her
not being able to wear her lovely dresses at parties. Even
the hidebound Cousin Emily, with her dislike of active
enjoyment, would never have dared to cast aspersions on
fox-hunting. That was the one sport she would never have
ventured to spoil. I think that if my mother had been asked,
at my christening, by a benevolent Fairy, "With what gifts
shall I endow your child? Shall he be a distinguished
politician, a great writer, an eminent composer, a painter
of renown or a good rider?" there is no doubt as to what her
answer would have been.

[Illustration: My Mother]

My mother's outlook on life was such as one might expect to
find in any member of a well-to-do mid-Victorian county
family. In spite of a certain amount of rivalry and friction
she believed very firmly in the sanctity of family ties. She
was a little ostentatiously devoted to all the other members
of her clan. "Blood is thicker than water" was a phrase that
was continually on her lips, until my father put a stop to
it by remarking that it was not so thick as the water in the
moat at Stackwell.

She had been brought up in luxurious surroundings by parents
who were kind and easy-going, ready at all times to indulge
their children in any reasonable pleasure. My mother and her
brothers and sisters were not, in any case, very difficult
children to deal with. Well-behaved, devoid of any excessive
fantasy or eccentricity, they had a wholesome respect for
the commandment which exhorts us to honour our fathers and
mothers.

They used to spend most of the year at Arley, pursuing their
rural sports, hunting, shooting and fishing. Golf had not
yet come into vogue. Every summer the whole family moved,
rather reluctantly, to London for the season. My
grandfather's house in Belgrave Square was, in atmosphere if
not in style, an almost exact replica of Arley. It had the
same air of solid, Victorian comfort. The rooms were large
and well-proportioned, and from the windows one saw nothing
but the tall trees in the square. One might have been in the
country. Belgrave Square, in those days, was not the vortex
of traffic it is now. The aristocratic silence was only
disturbed by the occasional passing of an elegant victoria,
a landau or a hansom, and the sound of high-stepping horses.

Once the Farmers embarked upon one of those very British
excursions to the Continent. A sort of Grand Tour. It was a
great adventure. They started off with a few days in Paris.
Then they proceeded to Milan, Venice, Bologna, Florence and
Rome. They were accompanied by a courier and a whole retinue
of servants. I am not sure if sun-helmets and green veils
formed part of their outfit; I should think it was quite
likely. But although they brought back a lot of lovely
souvenirs, alabaster models of the leaning tower of Pisa,
goblets of Venetian glass, slabs of mosaic made of coloured
marble representing birds, flowers and Italian peasants,
which encumbered the tables at Arley for many years
afterwards, I am not sure that they really enjoyed being
abroad. It rained in Venice, Uncle Luke caught a sunstroke
in Florence, my mother lost a bracelet at the opera in
Milan, and my grandmother found a bug in her bed at Bologna.
These mishaps were often referred to when anyone spoke too
enthusiastically of foreign travel.

My mother, as a girl, seems to have had vague leanings
towards romanticism. But it was a nice, well-trimmed,
landscape-gardener's kind of romanticism. She preferred
Walter Scott to Byron. But as soon as she was married, one
of the first things she did was to go out and buy a copy of
_Don Juan_, which she had previously been forbidden to
read. Another thing she did on the same occasion was to walk
down Bond Street unaccompanied. However, I fancy that both
these acts were more in the nature of a gesture than a real
craving for adventure.

Amongst some old papers I discovered the manuscript of a
story my mother had once written. It was, I believe, her
only literary effort. The story was about a young woman
(obviously a self-portrait) who lived in a Gothic castle,
surrounded by dogs and horses. It was not a very exciting
story. Nothing very unusual seemed to have happened to the
heroine. But then I fancy that there was nothing my mother
would have disliked more than to have something very unusual
happening to her. Although she displayed considerable
courage on horseback, and I have no doubt that she would
have been brave in a shipwreck or a railway accident, I am
sure that in the ordinary course of life she never would
have gone out of her way to look for trouble.

If she ever indulged in day-dreams about a future married
state, it is probable that she pictured to herself an
existence which should be more or less a continuation of the
life she was then leading, and a husband who should be
somewhat similar to Uncle Luke, whom she adored, or possibly
a youthful edition of her father as she had first known him.

Her marriage, when it came, proved a bitter disillusion. At
the time when my father became engaged to my mother, he was
a lieutenant in the navy, and he was deeply in debt; a
situation that was largely due to one of Lady Bourchier's
many errors of education. For although she bullied and
terrorised her children she accustomed them to a far more
expensive standard of living than they would be able to
afford later on; at the same time she refused to allow them
to adopt any profession in which it might be possible for
them to make money. The family was numerous, and the
Bourchiers were not rich enough to give their children
anything but a very small allowance. My father's was barely
sufficient to pay for his annual consumption of cigars.

Far be it from me to cast aspersions on one of the partners
who were kind enough to bring me into the world;
nevertheless, I must confess that I have a shrewd suspicion
that my grandfather's great wealth had some influence upon
my father's choice. It is difficult to believe that he could
ever have been seriously in love with my mother. But it is
only fair to add that he did not seem to be the kind of man
who could ever have been seriously in love with anyone.

Whatever hopes may have been raised, it soon became apparent
that my mother would not be nearly as well off as had been
expected. The allowance my grandfather gave her on her
marriage was disappointingly small. However, he paid off all
my father's debts. It was some time before I came to
understand the lack of affection that existed between my two
parents. I thought at first that it was the normal
relationship between husbands and wives. Later on, when I
grew more sophisticated, I was able to diagnose more
accurately the hopelessness of the case. My father was
worldly, cynical, intolerant of any kind of inferiority,
reserved and self-possessed. My mother was unworldly, nave,
impulsive and undecided, and in my father's presence she was
always at her worst. It was, of course, just possible that
such contrasting characteristics might have dovetailed. But,
alas! they never did. My mother and father were like two
cogwheels that for ever failed to engage.

My father was a curious, moody, rather brilliant creature.
He was wrapped up in his career. He was essentially a man of
action, and thought was distasteful to him except on purely
practical matters. He had no sympathy with art and
literature. My mother, in moments of irritation, used to say
of him that he was a snob. It was undoubtedly true that he
would only put himself out for people who could be of some
use to him. But, on the other hand, he could be very
charming when he wished, and he had a great many devoted
friends.

As a child, I saw very little of my father. He was nearly
always away at sea. My discrimination was acute enough to
let me realise that, of my two parents, he was by far the
more interesting. But association with and dependence on my
mother led me to give her all my affection and to take her
side rather than his.

I used to admire and enjoy my father's occasional flashes of
wit. But I feared and disliked the long periods of silence
and moodiness that intervened, and even his wit, within the
family circle, was only exercised, as a rule, at the expense
of my mother or her friends.

I remember one instance of this, which made me laugh very
much at the time. My mother had rather a tendency to
encourage bores. There was one friend of hers whom my father
particularly disliked, a certain Colonel Stokes, a foolish
old fellow who seemed to live in a perpetual state of
righteous indignation. He used to write letters to the
papers and he had a red, military face that looked as if it
might go off bang at any moment. Colonel Stokes was always
bubbling over with local gossip and, with the subtle
instinct bores always seem to possess for the inapposite, he
would invariably insist on recounting his grievances to my
father. One day a dreadful thing happened. One of our
neighbours, it appeared, had lost his temper and kicked his
wife in public. This had upset the Colonel very much. "I
mean to say," he protested. "To kick your wife! And in
public too! It's not cricket,[1] is it?"

[Footnote 1: "Not cricket," an expression which came into
vogue in the 'nineties to denote actions considered unworthy
of an Englishman and a gentleman.]

"No," said my father, stifling a yawn; "it seems to me more
like football."

     *     *     *     *     *

I was always very much impressed by my father's elegance. He
took a good deal of trouble about his clothes. He was a
small, well-built man. He wore a neat, pointed beard and he
walked with an imposing swagger. He had that easy
superiority of manner which enables people to command
respectful attention whether on a battleship or in a
restaurant. Anyone meeting him for the first time might have
mistaken him for a minor royalty.

[Illustration: My Father]

It gradually became obvious to me that my father had a life
quite of his own, about which my mother and I knew nothing,
and that, when he was in our company, he was wearing, in a
figurative sense, his old clothes; a deportmental nglig, a
dishabille of manners which he no doubt felt would do well
enough for home life.

He never attempted to take any active part in my education.
Once, when my mother suggested that, for some offence or
other, he should beat me, he merely said that he couldn't be
bothered. I suppose I ought to have been grateful to him,
but I remember feeling a little offended by his lack of
interest.

It is said that a child's idea of God is often based on the
characteristics of its male parent. If this is the case, it
may perhaps account for the somewhat peculiar ideas I
entertained, in my childhood, with regard to the Deity. I
remember, on an occasion when I was misbehaving, my nurse
said, " If you're not careful, one of these days God will
jump out from behind a cloud and catch you such a whack!"
The threat was an alarming one, but I was not perturbed, and
retorted, "Nonsense! God doesn't care WHAT we do."




VI

INTRODUCTION TO EUTERPE


Both in the earliest developments of my individual taste, as
also in later life, the visual sense has always
predominated. Even to music I was at first attracted by its
graphic symbolisation. The aural side of music held, at
first, no charms for me. Cousin Emily's singing was not of a
kind to inspire enthusiasm; it was, in fact, more calculated
to put one off music for ever, and it was no doubt due to
this fatal association that, once, when I was taken to a
village concert, I created a violent disturbance and had to
be removed.

One day, however, I unearthed in the library at Arley an old
volume of "Pieces for the Harp," compositions which seemed
to consist for the most part of arpeggios, glissandos and
cadenzas. My imagination was strangely moved by the sight of
these black waves of notes undulating across the pages, and,
having collected all the blank sheets of paper I could find,
I set to work to cover them with imitation cadenzas. At
first I omitted staves and clefs, for it was chiefly the
notes and the heavy triple and quadruple lines of the
notation that stirred my fancy with their forms almost
architectural in design. In the beginning there was only a
faint connection between these symbols and any idea of tone,
but after a while, helped no doubt by the romantic character
of the titles, they came to suggest surging waves of melody
and rhythm, an ideal music of which, as yet, I had had no
conscious experience. About this time there came to stay at
Arley a young woman who was a very fine pianist. She has the
additional advantage of being of a prepossessing appearance.
None of the household (with the possible exception of Emily)
cared in the least about music, but, out of politeness no
doubt, the visitor was asked to perform. Owing to the
possibility of my making a hostile demonstration I was told
to leave the room. This I did without protest, for as yet I
felt no very definite association between the cadenzas I had
copied out of the book of "Pieces for the Harp" and the
severe-looking grand piano in the drawing-room that was only
played on by Emily. Nevertheless, the strains I heard
through the half-open door compelled my attention. It was
the Fantaisie Impromptu of Chopin. Here at last was the
realisation in sound of the magic signs that I had so
eagerly transcribed. The upward rush of semiquavers at the
beginning of the piece, followed by a shower of golden rain,
burst like a rocket in my imagination, and I remained
spellbound beside the door.

When the performance was over and I was able to approach the
pianist, I begged her to play once more that wonderful piece
of music. She was, I fancy, struck by the contrast of my
very real enthusiasm with the somewhat perfunctory
appreciations of her grown-up audience and, as soon as the
room was empty, she willingly complied. During the rest of
her visit the unfortunate young woman had no peace. With
childish persistence I never stopped imploring her to play
over and over again this magic music, and, with infinite
patience, she even managed to teach me to render, after a
fashion, the first few bars of the Fantaisie Impromptu. She
also played to me the works of other composers, but she
obviously preferred those of Chopin; and so did I. The mere
appearance of his name printed in thick black letters on the
covers used to fill my heart with ecstasy.

In the billiard-room at Arley there was a small cottage
piano, decrepit in appearance and uncertain in tone. Here,
whenever I was able to escape from my nurse, I would spend
my time playing over and over again the first few bars of
the Fantaisie Impromptu, which I had learnt by heart,
interspersed with a few extemporisations of my own.

The billiard-room was a vast and rather gloomy apartment,
separated from the main body of the house by a long, narrow
corridor. The only illumination came from a skylight, and
the light, falling from above, created the impression of an
aquarium. The centre of the room was occupied by the
billiard-table, and over it six gas-jets with opaque green
shades concentrated the light upon its surface. In the
daytime, under the melancholy skylight, there was something
peculiarly depressing about that empty expanse of green
cloth and those green shades which seemed to annihilate even
the greenest of thoughts.

As though to accentuate the grimness of the place, the
walls, papered in dull magenta, bristled with antlers,
wart-hogs, elephant tusks, and over the fireplace there was
a large trophy composed of assegais and other barbarous
weapons, On one side there was a raised dais upon which the
ladies could sit and watch the gentlemen playing billiards.

Except when there happened to be a house-party, the
billiard-room was deserted, and when Cousin Emily was not
indulging in one of her musical soliloquies, I was allowed
to strum undisturbed "amid the encircling gloom" and the
smell of stale tobacco smoke. So violent was my enthusiasm
for this newly-discovered pleasure that it rendered me
impervious to atmosphere; the billiard-room, with its
assegais and wart-hogs, was transformed into a paradise by
the presence of that discordant, moribund cottage piano.

This unexpected penchant for music was not entirely approved
of. My mother's attitude, when she saw me "taking to music,"
was (to use a familiar phrase) a little like that of a hen
when the duckling she has hatched out takes to the water, an
attitude of alarm, tempered with pride. She was assured,
however, by the rest of the family that it was quite a
harmless pursuit, so long as it took place out of hearing,
and that it would at any rate keep me from mischief until
the time came for me to apply myself seriously to sport. One
of my aunts even went so far as to provide me with a Music
Primer, a thick volume bound in scarlet cloth containing a
very elementary exposition of the theory of music, followed
by a series of progressive pieces beginning with a
simplified Mozart minuet and ending up, in a flourish of
glory, with a mazurka of Chopin. The local piano-tuner was
called in to give me a few piano lessons. As soon as I was
able to read I started to work on the pieces at the end of
the Primer. With the impatience and self-confidence of
extreme youth I attacked the mazurka first of all and
eventually succeeded in playing it more or less correctly.

My growing proficiency began to excite comment. I was
sometimes made to show off my talents to visitors, which I
did with an almost excessive alacrity. The Chopin Mazurka
was my _cheval de bataille_. Unluckily it happened also to
be one of Cousin Emily's stock pieces, and every time I
played it in public I used to notice that she either left
the room or else would remain seated with a look of marked
disapproval on her face. I imagine that, ultimately, she
must have spoken about it to my mother, for I was told not
to play the mazurka when Emily was present, and that it
would be a good thing if I were to try and learn another
piece.




VII

ALTHREY


When I was about six years old, my mother and I went to live
in a small house called Althrey, on the borders of
Shropshire and Wales. It was an unpretentious house and,
after the spaciousness and grandeur of Arley, it seemed to
me cramped and unattractive. To begin with, it had only two
storeys. The fact that Arley had three gave rise in my mind
to an odd sort of architectural snobbishness. I considered
that a house with only two storeys was lacking in
distinction. However, there were certain features in the
surrounding scenery that had a consoling affinity with
Arley. The actual situation of the house was pleasant
enough. It stood on a grassy slope, facing a wide expanse of
meadow-land, enclosed on three sides, like a stadium, by
low, thickly-wooded slopes which reminded me of the terraces
at Arley. In this arena the river Dee, a winding,
picturesque stream, not unlike the Severn, made an almost
complete circle, leaving in the same direction as that in
which it entered, as though it had met with some geological
opposition and was not going to insist. In the spring and
early summer the meadows were spangled with every kind of
wild flower--cowslip, fritillary, cuckoo-flower and bright
marsh-marigold, that edition de luxe of the common
buttercup, and in the woods and hedgerows there was a
greater variety of bird-life than even Arley could provide.
As a child, ornithology was one of my principal hobbies. At
a very early age I became a bird bore.

On a distant hill there stood a grey, ivy-clad house,
bearing the romantic name of Gwyn Hylerd. For years this
house had been uninhabited. It was beginning to fall into
ruin and had acquired a sort of Walter de la Mare atmosphere
of eeriness. The serpentine course of the river placed it
beyond the range of our daily walks and, despite the
curiosity the place aroused in me, during the four or five
years I lived at Althrey, I never managed to get more
closely acquainted with it. It continued to retain for me
all the charm of an unreached goal. "Yarrow unvisited" is
often the most satisfactory for the idealist, and, whenever
I think of that particular landscape, the forlorn grey house
on the distant hill always figures as a little Valhalla of
mystery and romance

    "We have a vision of our own;
    Ah, why should we undo it?"

At Althrey I led a rather solitary life. It is said that an
only child has less fun but better fare. I know that, in my
early youth, I suffered a good deal from boredom. I
occasionally met other children and I had several small
friends in the immediate neighbourhood whom I saw fairly
often, but it is in the daily routine of a child's life that
solitude tells. For such important functions as getting up,
going to bed, meals and lessons, I had no other company than
my nurse and my mother.

Every afternoon after luncheon I used to have to rest. This
entailed lying on a bed in a darkened room for about an
hour. At this time of the day I always felt unusually wide
awake, and I used to find this enforced suspension of my
activities rather irksome. At the same time this hour of
repose was not without its charm. I was never able to sleep,
and on a summer afternoon it was pleasant to lie in idleness
and think of all the lovely things one could do when the
siesta was over and the hour of liberation came. A pause in
which one could "reculer pour mieux sauter." But one
afternoon my day-dreams were interrupted by an extraordinary
phenomenon that took place on the ceiling. Everything that
was happening outside the house within a certain radius
appeared upon it, mirrored in vivid shadow-play. As I lay on
my bed I could see, reproduced on the ceiling, the moving
figures of servants, gardeners or grooms. A dog trotted
across and a cat appeared and sat licking itself. I saw the
carriage coming up to the door and my mother going out for a
drive. It was a complete cinematographic representation in
silhouette. The curtains had been drawn in a certain way
which allowed a small shaft of light to penetrate, and the
ceiling of the room had been converted into a cinema screen.

Alas! as soon as the curtains were touched the vision
disappeared and I was never able to recapture it. Every
afternoon I used to pull the curtains backwards and forwards
hoping to produce the effect once more, but I was never able
to get more than a blurred picture that resembled a cinema
out of focus. The clarity of the first vision was a miracle
that never repeated itself. It depended, I suppose, upon a
very exact spacing of the curtains, the intensity of the
light outside and other details of arrangement that ought to
have been carried out with scientific precision. I was also
a little nervous of experimenting too openly with the
curtains lest I should be detected and made to divulge my
discovery. I had an instinctive objection to grown-ups
getting to know about any unusual form of pleasure for fear
it should be promptly condemned as immoral and forbidden.
One never knew.

Most of my time at Althrey was passed in the study of
bird-life. My enthusiasm for ornithology had been originally
aroused by the coloured illustrations of Gould's _British
Birds_, huge volumes bound in dark green morocco which, as
a special treat, I was sometimes allowed to take out of the
library at Arley. For some obscure reason birds of the
swallow tribe appealed to me most of all; especially
sand-martins; and it was a source of sorrow to me that,
although there was a sandy cliff in the neighbourhood which
seemed pre-eminently suitable for the habitation of
sand-martins, not one ever built its nest there. I should
have liked to have been able to boast of having
sand-martins' nests on the property. Finally, I was reduced
to burrowing holes myself in the face of the cliff and
pointing them out to people as the genuine article. I
carried on this innocent deception until, one day, the son
of one of our neighbours, a disagreeably spry youth with a
highly technical knowledge of natural history, detected the
imposture and proclaimed it from the housetops. It was a
horrible humiliation. I never liked that boy since, and I am
glad to say that he came to a bad end.

Ornithology had its pitfalls and false doctrines, just like
any other branch of scientific research. In an apparently
authoritative book on birds written by a clergyman (not, I
may say, the Vicar of Selborne) I found it stated that the
tree-creeper was of so sensitive and nervous a disposition
that if one were to throw a stone at the tree upon which it
was creeping, a few feet below it, it would fall to the
ground senseless. I wasted a great deal of time stalking
tree-creepers and throwing stones in the manner indicated,
but each time the bird merely flew away and I was left
feeling rather foolish. When I complained about it to my
father, he said that the clerical naturalist who had
recorded the phenomenon had very probably made a bad shot
and hit the bird itself. Plausible as this explanation
seemed to be, my faith both in clergymen and in the written
word was severely shaken. The first seeds of scepticism were
sown in my heart. In the same book I read that the
capercailzie, during the mating season, became so engrossed
in its love-song that you could steal up behind it while it
was singing and hit it over the head with a bludgeon. This
statement I never had the chance to verify. In any case the
author, in contradiction to his calling, seems to have been
rather bloodthirsty in his attitude towards the feathered
tribe, and it would have been just as well had he been a
little more animated with the spirit of St. Francis.

     *     *     *     *     *

Those who say that their childhood was the happiest period
of their lives must, one suspects, have been the victims of
perpetual misfortune in later years. For there is no reason
to suppose that the period of childhood is inevitably
happier than any other. The only thing for which children
are to be envied is their exuberant vitality. This is apt to
be mistaken for happiness. For true happiness, however,
there must be a certain degree of experience. The ordinary
pleasures of childhood are similar to those of a dog when it
is given its dinner or taken out for a walk, a
behaviouristic, tail-wagging business, and, as for childhood
being care-free, I know from my own experience, that black
care can sit behind us even on our rocking-horses.

I was subject, as a child, to outbursts of temper so
tumultuous, so unbridled as to cause those who witnessed
them to expect at any moment an attack of apoplexy. I often
regret that I am unable any longer to lose my temper in so
spectacular a fashion. I have noticed that people with a
reputation for violent irascibility generally succeed in
getting their own way, and it is not in the least necessary
for outbreaks of bad temper to have the backing of superior
physical strength. The wrath of the lamb is notoriously
terrible and even the rabbit, when it stamps its foot, is
alarming enough. A really good display of fury is always
impressive; there is something mystical, something dmonic
in its quality. There is no doubt that, during my early
childhood, the violence of my temper was very useful in
preserving me from punishment. It certainly did so on the
occasion of my first and only experience of corporal
chastisement.

This took place when I threw my mother's spaniel out of the
window. Let me hasten to assure dog-lovers that this action
was not inspired by innate cruelty or even by a hatred for
dogs in general. It was due, rather, to a false association
of ideas, an erroneous form of reasoning to which the human
mind is particularly prone. I had heard somebody say that if
you threw a dog into water it would instinctively swim.
Reflection upon this biological fact led me to wonder if a
dog, when thrown into the air, would also instinctively fly.
Happening to see my mother's spaniel lying near an open
window on the first floor, I felt that here was a good
opportunity to make the experiment. It was a fat dog, and I
had some difficulty in lifting it up on to the window-sill.
After giving it an encouraging pat, I pushed it off. I
watched the unfortunate animal gyrating in the air, its long
ringleted ears and tail spread out by centrifugal force.
(Incidentally it bore a strong resemblance to Elizabeth
Barrett Browning.) But it appeared to be making no effort
whatever to fly.

My mother was excusably infuriated by what appeared to her
to be an act of wanton cruelty (although the animal had
fallen unscathed into a lilac bush) and I failed to convince
her of the scientific aspect of the experiment. She made up
her mind to cross the educational Rubicon and to give me my
first thrashing. This was the occasion on which she appealed
in vain to my father. By the time she had selected a
convenient implement (which happened to be a bedroom
slipper) I fancy her resolution had already weakened. She
set about it in a half-hearted fashion. Nevertheless, the
first blow acted upon me as a spark in a powder magazine.
With empurpled face, foaming at the mouth, I wrested the
slipper from her hand and began belabouring her throat and
bosom with such violence that she ended by flying in terror
from the room.

Flagellation having proved a failure, other methods of
correction were attempted. Returning, one day, from a
picnic, I made myself very objectionable and was put out of
the pony-cart and compelled to run behind it. Whereupon I
gave vent to an access of fury so appalling, both to the
eyes and to the ears, that the cart was promptly stopped and
I had to be taken in again. When another offence was
punished by confinement in a dark cupboard, I retaliated by
locking up all the water-closets and throwing the keys into
a pond. As there happened to be visitors staying in the
house at the time, the confusion and discomfort caused in
the household can be easily imagined. The only corrections
that had any real effect upon me were those of a moral
nature. Curtailments of liberty or of food I merely regarded
as strictly personal disputes between myself and my nurse or
my mother. When, however, I was "sent to Coventry," when the
servants declined to speak to me, when my mother refused to
"kiss me good-night," the fact that I had offended against
the rules of order and decency was brought home to me far
more acutely, and I was made to feel that I was up against
the forces of convention and public opinion that keep the
ordinary citizen in his proper place.




VIII

MOTHER AND CHILD


Reflection on the subject of parental affection has led me
to the cynical conclusion that the love of parents for their
children is, more often than not, heavily alloyed with
unconscious egoism. It is the secret wish of most parents
that their offspring should grow up into replicas of
themselves and carry on their own ideals to a higher state
of perfection. At the same time they would probably be
surprised and offended if they were to find them doing it
too successfully.

[Illustration: Mother and Child]

Parents, as a rule, find a certain difficulty in living down
the fact that they once had a greater knowledge of the world
than their children. And, even if they continue to retain an
intellectual predominance, they are apt to forget that their
advice has, in many cases, become less valuable through
conditions being no longer quite the same. Thus it comes
about that it is not always the children who are hostages to
fortune.

A really satisfactory relationship is only possible in cases
where children and parents are equally intelligent (or
equally stupid) and have more or less the same tastes. If
you do not enjoy this happy condition, the safest course is
to dissociate yourself as much as possible from your
children, to maintain a benevolent aloofness, and to leave
them to find salvation as best they may. You will then be in
a stronger position when disasters occur. You will have the
pleasure of being able to say, "There, you see! We let you
have your own way, and look what has come of it!"

In the education of children, as in many other matters, the
wisest maxim is "Surtout point de zle." It was certainly
the one that governed my own father's attitude towards my
own upbringing. Of course, owing to his profession, he was a
good deal away from home. But in the brief intervals of his
return I never remember his taking anything beyond a very
mild interest in my mental or physical development.
Consequently the task of my early training devolved upon my
mother.

The keystone of my mother's character was an artless
simplicity. She was devoid of any kind of affectation. She
was one of the most natural people I have ever known. In her
speech she was uncalculating and spontaneous. Like most of
her generation she never attempted to analyse her motives.
She had very little knowledge of the world and little
psychological judgment. She had a vacillating nature, and
she was for ever changing her mind. But beneath this
shifting surface there was a solid bedrock of all the
traditional ideas and conventions she had absorbed in her
youth, ideas she never questioned and which she deliberately
refused to put to the test of reality.

In this my mother was typical of her class and her period. A
certain rigidity of mind is one of the things that
particularly distinguished her generation. Nowadays people
are more willing, sometimes even too willing, to indulge in
experiment. To take a trivial example (which, however, can
be taken as symbolical of wider issues), my mother had been
brought up to believe that reading in bed was bad for the
eyes. Consequently in her house there were never any lights
beside the beds. In order to read one was obliged to erect a
little altar of candles on the _table de nuit_.

In literature and art my mother's tastes were conventional
but at the same time catholic. She admired indiscriminately
Keats and Longfellow, Jane Austen and Marie Corelli.
Paintings by Leader and Luke Fildes gave her the same
emotions as those by Raphael and Titian. In the drawing-room
at Althrey there hung a copy of a Raphael Madonna bought by
her during the famous Italian tour, and two Siennese
primitives given her as a wedding present. There was also a
photogravure of a picture called "The Soul's Awakening,"
showing the effect the reading of a religious book can have
on a nice young girl. The picture represented a young woman
holding a book in her hand which may have been the Bible,
the Prayer Book or St. Thomas  Kempis. She was obviously
very much struck by some passage in it and was raising her
eyes to heaven and looking as if butter wouldn't melt in her
mouth. There was another engraving of a young lady seated at
an organ. It was called "The Lost Chord," and one felt that
it was just as well that she had lost it. There was also an
equestrian portrait of the Empress of Austria jumping a
fence with the greatest imaginable elegance.

My mother's taste in furniture and decoration was
characterised by the same catholic insouciance. The house
contained a bewildering jumble of good and bad. Oriental
fretwork and rather crude specimens of late Victorian
furniture stood side by side with Chippendale and Sheraton.
My mother's taste was also influenced by sentiment, and she
often grew attached to objects that were entirely lacking in
artistic value just because they happened to have been given
to her by people she liked. Notwithstanding certain
regrettable lapses of judgment, there was an inner harmony
in her soul that reflected itself in the arrangement of her
home. In the drawing-room at Althrey there prevailed so
delightful an atmosphere of peace and content that people
would exclaim upon entering it for the first time, "What a
charming room!"

My mother had, in spite of her diffident nature, a very good
opinion of her own judgment. She had been brought up in
conditions of complete unworldliness and had been accustomed
to depend on others. When, after her marriage, she was
obliged to manage for herself and discovered that she was
able to do so more or less successfully, she began to take a
rather exaggerated pride in her efficiency. She knew that
she rode well and that she looked well on horseback. For
this she had some justification. But she was also convinced
that her taste was impeccable and that her opinions on life
were infallible.

My father, also, was convinced of the infallibility of his
own judgment. His outlook, however, was a vastly different
one from that of my mother. He was apt to scoff at all the
dogmas my mother held most sacred, such as the superiority
of simple faith over Norman blood, of kind hearts over
coronets. My mother's lack of dialectic skill often set her
at a disadvantage. With a single caustic phrase my father
would demolish my mother's humble but soundly constructed
philosophies.

This led her to entrench herself more and more in her inward
sense of right. She grew to distrust clever and fashionable
people. She preferred reigning in a hell of mediocrities to
serving in a heaven populated by the lite. For, in spite of
the intellectual subordination and the constant humiliations
my father both consciously and unconsciously enforced upon
her, there lay concealed within her a desire to dominate,
and if my father had happened to be a man of weak character
he would probably have been subjected to a certain amount of
bullying.

My mother was almost entirely devoid of that questionable
asset, a sense of humour. Comedy and tragedy were, for her,
two completely separate things. That the two Muses walked,
at times, arm-in-arm, she absolutely refused to admit.
Nevertheless, she often expressed her views in a way that
was distinctly humorous, although she herself was quite
unconscious of the fact. And although she was unable to
detect humour in herself or in others she never minded being
laughed at. When her ingenuous remarks were greeted with
uproarious laughter, she was often rather surprised, but
never in the least offended or abashed. And she would remark
quite complacently, "People are always telling me I am so
amusing."

My mother was very fond of dogs. There were four of them at
Althrey. A spaniel (who has already figured in these pages),
a collie, a fox-terrier and a bloodhound. The collie's
pedigree was far from distinguished but he had perfect
manners. The fox-terrier possessed the longest ears I have
ever seen growing on any dog. The mild, dignified
bloodhound, with rugged face and bloodshot eyes, would sit
and stare at one with such an air of reproach that, after a
time, one began to feel that one must have done something
frightfully unkind.

Dogs that are much in the company of their owners often end
by acquiring a similarity of temperament. By a kind of
telepathic transfusion the characteristics of their masters
are transmitted to them. The dogs of hearty people have a
tendency to grow hearty, the dogs of lethargic people to
spend most of their time sleeping, the dogs of fierce people
to bark and bite.

The dogs at Althrey, although of widely different breeds,
had, all four of them, many of my mother's distinguishing
characteristics. They were loyal. They only cared for my
mother and hardly took any notice of the other members of
the household. They formed certain definite habits from
which they never departed. They were upset by any novelty.
They were obedient, but at the same time rather independent.
They often seemed unable to make up their minds and would
hesitate about such actions as entering a room or going
upstairs. They were serious dogs. They had no sense of
humour. They were always going off into the woods to hunt
but they never got lost.

     *     *     *     *     *

Taking all things into consideration, I should say my life
at Althrey was pleasant enough. My mother and I were
constantly together. Every day we used to go for long
rambles through the fields, or by the river side, or else we
would drive about the lanes in a pony-cart. Sometimes my
mother would allow me to help her when she was gardening. My
help consisted, for the most part, in destroying valuable
flowers or in planting weeds with great care in conspicuous
places. In return, she would take an active but not very
expert interest in my ornithological studies. Indeed her
participation in this latter pursuit often resulted in
serious dissensions. I once accused her of having caused a
golden-crested wren to desert its nest, and there was one
altercation that lasted for several weeks, as to whether a
bird we had seen in the distance was a cuckoo or a
sparrow-hawk. However, notwithstanding these occasional
disputes, we were very happy in one another's company.

On the subject of riding lessons and horsemanship in general
our harmonious relationship was in far greater danger of
being marred. Here an insidious undercurrent of mutual
grievances aggravated the essential divergence between my
mother's character and my own. It was her ambition that I
should excel in horsemanship and be a credit to the family
tradition. Consequently she was over-anxious, and my early
training in the art of riding was mismanaged through excess
of zeal.

I am glad to say that I am singularly free from complexes
and repressions and, if I have any at all, they are
assuredly connected with my early experiences on horseback.
I was made to begin riding almost as soon as I could walk. I
fell off my pony more often than not, and as I was generally
laughed at when I did so, the combined effects of fear and
humiliation inspired me, with a distaste for riding which
the equally potent dread of derision obliged me to
dissimulate. I never ventured to dispute the point of view
that to ride well was the main object of life; that to be a
bad rider meant that one could never hope to attain to any
measure of success or popularity. All my cousins and most of
my small friends seemed to have inherited sporting tastes,
and in this respect I was the one black sheep of the family.




IX

NESTA


My mother was particularly anxious for me to make friends
with other children in the neighbourhood who had sporting
proclivities. One or two of the little playmates who were
thrust upon me I actively disliked. The most objectionable
of them all was a little girl called Nesta, the daughter of
an amateur horse-coper. She was what is known as a tom-boy.
She was a braggart and a swashbuckler and, unfortunately, in
her case boastfulness was supported by facts. She was as
strong as an ox, she rode beautifully and she could climb
trees in a way that was both efficient and ostentatious. She
patronised me with contemptuous arrogance. She was for ever
telling me that I was a "muff" and that I ought to have been
a little girl, to which I would reply, "If I had to be one
like you, thank Heavens I'm not."

Amongst my toys there was a very lifelike horse equipped
with real harness and a detachable tail. Nesta had among
hers a large doll which could be dressed and undressed. It
also had articulated joints and it could open and shut its
eyes. One day, in a spirit of mockery, she suggested that we
should exchange the doll and the horse. I eagerly assented,
and the next time I went to see her I took the horse with me
and brought back the doll. This created a violent scandal at
home. My mother was very much upset. She intimated that it
was a terrible mortification for a mother to have a little
boy who preferred dolls to horses. She continued for some
time afterwards to comment on the fact in scathing terms in
the presence of visitors. Nesta was of course delighted. It
was just the effect she had hoped to produce.

A little later, however, I did manage to get even with her,
though I am obliged to confess that the manner of doing so
was due not so much to my own ingenuity or bravery as to the
sheeplike behaviour of my pony and the consequence of equine
sex-appeal.

In one of the paddocks adjoining the house where Nesta lived
there was a miniature hippodrome consisting of a series of
fences and a small water-jump. One day, after I had been out
riding with Nesta and some other small friends, she took us
to the paddock in order to treat us to an exhibition of her
skill in jumping. I had a feeling that, among other things,
her performance was designed for my special humiliation.

After a preliminary harangue in which she laid stress on the
difficulty some of the fences presented and the ease and
efficiency with which she was going to jump them, she set
off round the course. Whereupon my pony started to follow.
In spite of all my efforts, I was unable to hold it back.
Hard upon her pony's heels, and in mortal fear, I was
carried over all the fences, including the water-jump. How I
contrived not to fall off I cannot imagine.

Her equestrian act completed, Nesta turned with a triumphant
air to take the applause of her audience and was stupefied
to find me just behind her. I had spoilt her show. Luckily
for me, nobody guessed the true explanation of my feat, and,
shaken as I was by the awful ordeal I had just been through,
I was nevertheless able to pull myself together and pass the
matter off as though I had acted of my own free will. As a
result of this incident, Nesta's attitude towards me was
slightly modified. But not for long. Her boastfulness, her
contempt for those less proficient than herself were so
essential a part of her character that she soon returned to
her old ways, and continued to provoke me to sullen anger
with her crude assumption of superiority, her taunts and
jeers whenever I came to grief on horseback. And this
happened more frequently than ever, for my mother, hearing
of my involuntary jockey-act, the truth about which I
naturally concealed from her, had a miniature steeplechase
course set up, where I was obliged to practise jumping every
day.

I grew to dislike riding more and more, but the ideal of
"manliness" was constantly held up to me, and manfully I
persevered.

Manliness was a virtue in which one had to be laboriously
instructed. Like so many other virtues, it did not seem to
correspond with the natural instincts of the human being. I
came to the conclusion that "manliness" was a very
complicated ideal. Why, for instance, was it considered
unmanly to cling to the pommels of the saddle when it seemed
such a very obvious thing to do? Why was it manly to kill a
rook or a rabbit or even to ill-treat a cat, while it was
unmanly to hurt a dog or a horse, who were much larger and
apparently better able to retaliate? Why were music and
painting held to be effeminate when all the greatest
painters and composers had been men? And how could Nesta,
who was a girl, be more manly than I was? Why was she held
up to me as an example? Was manliness an ideal for both
sexes?

I gave up the attempt to unravel the various problems
connected with manliness, and set out to try and do, within
limits, what was expected of me. I began to understand that
the lot of small boys resembled that of the heroes of the
Light Brigade, "Theirs not to reason why."

My pony began to develop a tendency to friskiness, and
kicked me off several times in succession. Nesta, hearing of
this, said, "Let me ride him. I will tame him for you."

She rode him and was promptly kicked off herself. I was
overjoyed. This was her second defeat in the War of
Liberation. Her Waterloo was shortly to follow.

One day my mother had invited two small boys to spend the
afternoon with me. They were the sons of the Colonel Stokes
whom my father so much disliked. Both were good riders, but
in every other respect they were as uninteresting as their
father. My mother had thrust them upon me with a view to
encouraging my taste for sport. Nesta had also been invited,
not without protests on my part. She arrived in a
particularly aggressive mood. I felt that I was in a
minority. The Stokes boys were definitely in her hemisphere
rather than in mine. Despite the fact that they too were
occasionally subjected to her taunts and overbearing
patronage, they admired her and were fond of her, a
circumstance that makes the part they played in the
dnouement of this story all the more mysterious.

We had climbed up on to the top of a haystack. I rather
diffidently suggested playing at smugglers. Nesta invariably
turned down any game not suggested by herself. "I don't
care," she said, "about the sort of baby games you like."

She was standing near the edge of the rick. I gave her a
violent push. She fell on to the shaft of a cart below and
cut her leg. She broke out into a torrent of abuse, at the
same time pulling down her stocking to examine the wound.
Then a very odd thing happened. For a moment the air seemed
full of electricity. We were beset by that same primeval
panic that brings about mass hysteria, pogroms or stampedes.
I jumped down from the haystack, followed by the two boys.
We all three fell upon Nesta simultaneously and, tearing
away her clothes, each of us gave her a resounding smack on
her bare bottom.

It all seemed to have happened in a flash, just as if we had
been moved by some extraneous force, as though we were
marionettes worked by a common impulse. After it was over,
we relapsed once more into a normal state.

For a few minutes Nesta lay speechless on the ground. Then
she burst into tears. Her three aggressors stood by, rather
sheepishly watching her while she picked herself up and,
still sobbing, made for the house.

Although the outrage had been committed with complete
unanimity, the responsibility for it rested, I felt, upon my
shoulders alone. Nesta was my guest and the incident had
taken place at my home. The only thing to do, I thought, was
to follow her indoors and to endeavour to repair matters as
best I could. As we approached the house we saw her driving
away.

My mother, fortunately, was out at the time. For this I was
thankful, although it only meant trouble deferred. For the
moment I only had to face the reproaches and recriminations
of my nurse.

We sat down to tea in silence. The two remaining guests
seemed utterly dumbfounded. Their stolid faces were flushed
and sullen. As I have said, they were more Nesta's friends
than mine. But in the odd psychological turmoil that had
just taken place, it seemed as though the rage Nesta had
provoked in me had been so violent that it burst out and
overflowed through telepathic channels, compelling the two
boys to act almost automatically, as if under the influence
of some sort of hypnotic suggestion. Or it may have been
that, subconsciously, they resented Nesta's domination as
much as I did, and her momentary abasement aroused some
primitive instinct of revolt and savagery.

I was ashamed of myself. I was suffering from a guilty
conscience. None the less I now hated Nesta more than ever,
after what had happened. I hated her for having caused me to
behave like a cad.

The issue had been of too complicated a nature to clear the
air. My emotional tension found relief at last in a
hysterical outbreak. I laid my head on the table and gave
vent to peals of shrill laughter, unchecked by the
expression of complete bewilderment on the sheeplike faces
of the Stokes boys, and by my nurse's horrified
interjections of "For shame!" "How can you?" and "Well, I
never!" Finally, I flung myself on a sofa, and the laughter
gave place to a most lamentable howling, while the two boys
were hurried away.

When my mother returned and was told of the events of this
agitated afternoon, to my surprise she received the news
with unexpected placidity. The ways of grown-ups were ever
unaccountable! Beyond impressing me with the fact that one
should never, under any circumstances, strike a woman, she
did not seem to attach any very serious importance to my
misconduct. She even remarked, "Well, I hope it will be a
lesson to her not to be so bumptious." My mother's
complacency on this occasion may have been in some measure
due to the fact that Nesta's father had, a few days before,
succeeded in selling her a very unsatisfactory horse.

At all events, I had contrived to get Nesta out of my life
for good. She never came over to Althrey again, and whenever
I saw her at children's parties she always looked the other
way. Once at the dancing class I came face to face with her
in a passage. I put out my tongue at her (it seemed the
thing to do) and she went off muttering, "Nasty cowardly
little muff!"

Soon afterwards Nesta's parents left the neighbourhood, and
I never saw her or heard of her again.




X

NEIGHBOURS


At Althrey we had a great many neighbours. The countryside
was dotted with "gentlemen's houses" and an occasional
"stately home." The occupants were just what one might have
expected them to be; the men hunted and shot, the women
hunted, gossiped and played croquet. A visit to London was,
for most of them, a hectic interlude in their peaceful rural
lives, and it generally coincided with some such event as
the opening of the Royal Academy or the Eton and Harrow
match.

I was, in those days, too young to be able to extract much
pleasure from the foibles and eccentricities of mankind;
however, the characteristics of some of the people I used to
know remain vividly impressed on my memory.

About four miles away there lived an elderly lady, Mrs.
Lafontaine, and her companion, Miss Goby. They were devoted
to children, and they seemed to have taken a particular
fancy to me. I was often invited to go over and spend the
afternoon with them.

The tastes of these two ladies were the reverse of sporting,
but my mother allowed, and encouraged me to go and see them
whenever they asked me. Mrs. Lafontaine had a charming house
and she was very rich. Even the most high-minded parents may
be allowed to have worldly ambitions for their children, and
Mrs. Lafontaine had no heirs. (However, I may say at once
that nothing came of it. When Mrs. Lafontaine died, most of
her money went to charities and the remainder to Miss Goby.)

At that time I had never been abroad and Mrs. Lafontaine
represented for me the glamour of foreign travel. Each year
she and Miss Goby went for a tour on the Continent. They
were enthusiastic water-colour artists, and they always
brought back portfolios full of sketches of France, Italy or
Switzerland, executed with a skilful combination of accuracy
and romance.

Mrs. Lafontaine and her companion were the apotheosis of a
certain type of Englishwoman still happily to be met with on
the Continent. Both of them had the slightly prominent teeth
of the traditional "fille d'Albion." Their high fringes in
the Queen Alexandra style were crowned with hats perched at
a slanting angle which made them look as though they were
just about to loop the loop. The gestures of the two ladies
were brisk and decided, their voices rather loud and
authoritative. One could visualise them moving through
foreign crowds, oblivious of mockery, wholly concentrated on
the enjoyment of "being abroad."

For them the Continent was still the Continent of the
eighteenth-century Grand Tour, with a touch of Mark Twain's
"Innocents Abroad." Their Germany was still the Germany of
Goethe, their France was the France of the first English
settlers on the Riviera, their Switzerland, devoid of
Sanatoriums and Winter Sports, the Switzerland of William
Tell, edelweiss and the Merry Swiss Boy.

Mrs. Lafontaine's house was called Rose Hill. It stood, as
its name implied, on a hill, and its trellised porches were
festooned with roses. The park descended in a gentle slope
to the river Dee, and the banks of the river were thick with
chestnut trees and larches. In the summer the two ladies
would often take me with them to picnic by the river side.
We would drive down across the grass in a pony-chaise,
followed by a footman in another cart laden with a large
hamper, a tea-kettle and sketching appliances.

The pictures they made of the neighbourhood had the same
romantic qualities as the ones they painted abroad, and Rose
Hill came to figure more and more in my imagination as a
foretaste of the continental world I so longed to know.

My mother was a little apt to censure Mrs. Lafontaine's
exaggerated partiality for everything foreign. A very
pronounced Italian atmosphere prevailed at Rose Hill. The
rooms were full of mosaic cabinets, bright striped fabrics
from Naples and Sorrento, inlaid wooden boxes, painted
Venetian cupboards, chandeliers and goblets of Murano glass.
In the hall there was a huge stone fire-place transported
from Bologna. Even the food was Italian, and there were
risottos, macaroni and, a thing I especially delighted in,
little packets of raisins folded up in vine leaves and
tasting like wedding cake.

Mrs. Lafontaine was a great authority on Italian literature,
and once when my mother gave a "book tea" (a rather dreary
entertainment in which everyone had to come dressed as the
title of a well-known novel), the two ladies of Rose Hill
appeared, the one wearing a top hat, the other a veil, as "I
promessi sposi." In a more sophisticated neighbourhood this
entre might possibly have occasioned ribald comment and
given birth to sinister rumours. As it was, it merely
baffled everyone, and Mrs. Lafontaine was obliged to
disclose what they were supposed to represent.

Both the ladies were intensely young at heart. Mrs.
Lafontaine appeared to be growing younger every day. She
adored giving children's parties, and surrounding herself
with very young people. In their midst she seemed to become
herself a child. Miss Goby, in order to ingratiate herself
with her patroness, or perhaps with a view to keeping her in
countenance, would enter with an even greater zest into the
infantile revels. I remember, on one occasion, in a
hayfield, Miss Goby, throwing decorum to the winds, rushed
forward and tried to stand on her head in a haycock. It was
due to this incident that I first got an inkling that the
two ladies were slightly ludicrous.

As I grew older I grew, at the same time, to be a little
ashamed of my friendship with Mrs. Lafontaine. I discovered
that most of my contemporaries looked upon her and Miss Goby
as figures of fun. In the transition from childhood to
adolescence, independence of spirit is liable to diminish.
My judgment of people and things became more and more
influenced by public opinion. The memory of the happy
afternoons I had spent at Rose Hill in the company of the
two ladies, the pleasant picnics by the river, the
excitement of examining a new batch of continental
landscapes, the delicious Italian food, all this was
temporarily obliterated by a growing sense of the ridiculous
which, in its immaturity, made me self-conscious and afraid
of being associated with anything or anybody generally
considered to be absurd. A sense of humour, to be of any
real value to its possessor, must be untrammelled by any
kind of conventional bias, and I was, at that time, very far
from having attained to the enlightened state in which it is
possible to combine mockery with affection, and to
disentangle the sublime from the ridiculous. Not that there
was very much that was sublime about the ladies of Rose
Hill, but there was a good deal that was lovable and, from
my own point of view, particularly stimulating.

Now that they are dead and gone, the record of all the happy
hours I spent in their company, of all they represented for
me at a certain period of my childhood, of their kindness,
of their absurdity and of my ingratitude, remains in my
memory as an aftermath tinged with melancholy and regret.

     *     *     *     *     *

Another neighbour of ours who stood out from the background
of more ordinary county folk was Mr. Vivian Pratt.

Distantly related to a ducal family, he enjoyed a greater
consideration in the county than he might otherwise have
done. Mr. Vivian Pratt was considered eccentric, but nothing
more. In those days people were more nave with regard to
certain aspects of life than they are now. It was said of
him that he had odd mannerisms, that he was inclined to be
effeminate, and there criticism ceased. Mr. Vivian Pratt had
a mincingly ingratiating voice and he moved with an
undulating gait. When walking through a room he looked as
though he were trying to avoid imaginary chairs and tables,
and he would describe elaborate circles with the middle
portion of his body. His clothes had a fashion-plate
neatness and always seemed a little inappropriate to the
country, but when he appeared on horseback nobody could
present a more dapper picture of horsiness. His get-up,
however, like that of Miss Lucy Glitters when she appeared
in the hunting-field, looked as if it could not have
weathered even the mildest of rain-storms.

His manners were excessive in their courtliness and he used
to annoy my mother by addressing her as "Dear lady." His
conversational repertoire consisted of a number of more or
less amusing anecdotes relating to London society or to the
theatrical world. He was inclined to be sententious and
epigrammatic.

I gathered that my father did not care very much for Mr.
Pratt, and certainly his behaviour, when Mr. Pratt was
present, and his comments after he had left, seemed to
suggest that he understood him better than my mother
appeared to do. I remember one day Mr. Pratt saying, "I
often think that the best things in life are behind us." My
mother was inclined to agree with the sentiment and was a
little puzzled when my father broke into a malignant guffaw
of laughter which seemed hardly justified by the innocent
nature of the remark.

I had an impression that Mr. Pratt was not very interested
in children. When he came to the house my presence appeared
to embarrass him and he seemed almost studiously to avoid
noticing me. But once, when I rode over to take him a note
from my mother, he made himself unexpectedly agreeable. He
showed me his collection of jade and his orchid houses, and
when I left he presented me with a magnificent cattleya.
When I showed the orchid to my mother on my return the gift
appeared to cause her an unaccountable irritation. She said
it was a ridiculous thing to have given a child. It is
possible that the incongruity of the gesture aroused some
dim apprehension slumbering at the back of her
unsophisticated mind. I was accompanied, when I paid this
visit to Mr. Pratt, by a rather good-looking groom, and I
remember thinking that, after all, Mr. Pratt must be a nice
man as he seemed so amiable in his manner to servants.

After we left Althrey I lost sight of Mr. Vivian Pratt for
many years. During the last months of the war I met him
again. He was working for the Red Cross in Paris. An officer
in the same department told me that he had made himself
extremely useful. However, he qualified his eulogy by
adding, "It's extraordinary what a lot of that sort there
are in the Red Cross. I suppose it provides an opportunity
for exploiting the 'feminine touch.'"

In contradiction to the generally expressed opinion that
such people grow more repulsive with age, Mr. Pratt, when I
saw him again, seemed to have been decidedly improved by the
patina of time. There were still unmistakable indications
for the pathologist, but his voice had grown less mincing,
his gait less undulating. The impression I had may, of
course, have been due to the fact that he was wearing a
uniform, which (as the term implies) has a tendency to
minimise irregular characteristics; or possibly it was
because I had grown more accustomed to a type which, in the
intervening years, had come into its own.




XI

EDUCATIONAL


When I reached the age of seven my mother thought it would
be a good idea to amplify my education by employing the
services of the local curate.

Mr. Allen was a meek and gentle young man. He wore his hair
parted in the middle, and this, together with his beard and
his general air of mildness, gave him a strong resemblance
to the traditional portraits of Our Saviour. It was, I am
sure, quite unintentional on his part, for he had so humble
and unassuming a nature that he would never have dared. He
was indeed so diffident and apologetic in his manner that I
took him, at first, to be a perfect specimen of a
nincompoop, and I remember saying to my mother, "I am sure
that I could love Jesus better if He were not so dreadfully
like Mr. Allen."

However Mr. Allen the man and Mr. Allen the teacher were two
separate individuals and, although I began by despising him
as a man I came eventually to revere him as a teacher. In
spite of his aggravating demureness he possessed a real
genius for instruction. He made his lessons so interesting
that I used to look forward to them. Under his pleasantly
persuasive tuition I even enjoyed Latin Grammar, which he
encouraged me to look upon in the light of an acrostic or
word game. I enjoyed it almost as much as I came to loathe
it later on, when, at my preparatory school, it ceased to be
a game (as did also games themselves) and was held up as a
serious object in life, acquiring a definite moral value, so
that a misconstruction of syntax came to be considered a
more egregious offence than a misconstruction of the facts
of life.

But even Mr. Allen, for all his pedagogic charm, was unable
to reconcile me to arithmetic. I had an active distaste for
figures and the mere sight of the simplest addition sum
filled my soul with nausea. When I read in one of my bird
books that crows experienced difficulty in counting up to
more than six I sympathised with them heartily, and, having
previously rather disliked crows, I began to regard them
with an almost sentimental interest.

Most children have an immense capacity for resisting
information that does not appeal to them, and Mr. Allen,
like the family doctor, wisely followed the line of least
resistance. Thus we skated lightly over mathematics and
concentrated on other more agreeable subjects. I conceived a
violent passion for Greek and Latin mythology, and Mr. Allen
was rash enough to lend me a small illustrated Mythological
Dictionary. For months afterwards I would startle everyone I
met with the most embarrassing questions about Leda and the
Swan, the rape of Ganymede, the engendering of Minerva and
all the more curious and scandalous episodes of the
classical Mythology. Once, upon being shown a very
well-furnished sow by its proud owners, I expatiated at
great length and with a wealth of detail upon the striking
resemblance it bore to the many-breasted Diana of the
Ephesians.

However, it must not be thought that I was an unduly
prurient child. When I was hurried away from a cow that was
in the throes of parturition I was not in the least curious
to know what it was all about. Indeed I had a presentiment
that it was going to be an unappetising spectacle. When
children appear to have an unholy flair for pornography it
is more often than not merely a puckish instinct for getting
even with their elders by embarrassing them.

Mr. Allen lived in the village which was about a quarter of
a mile distant. His house was situated on the banks of the
river, a pleasant little cottage, with trellised porch and
diamond-paned windows, that looked as if it had been
designed by Kate Greenaway. I used to walk in to my lessons
every morning. At the end of two years Mr. Allen left the
neighbourhood and it was decided to entrust my further
education to a professional.

     *     *     *     *     *

I overheard a certain amount of deliberation as to whether
the new governess should be English, French or German. For
my own part I secretly hoped that she would be French. I had
never been to France, but I had already conceived a very
definite opinion about that country. It was based, as far as
I can remember, upon conversational allusions to the
"proverbial gaiety" of Paris, a photograph of the Eiffel
Tower and a gaily decorated box of sweets that had come, one
Christmas, from Boissier. I also hoped that a Frenchwoman in
our midst might possibly impart a touch of continental
"lgret" into our rather dull provincial atmosphere.

The impious wish, however, was destined to be disappointed.
In those days the three Rs, Russians, Radicals and Roman
Catholics, inspired certain people with an alarm that verged
on panic. My mother was assured that it would be most
unwise, even criminal, to confide a little Protestant soul
to a Papist. And there were equally cogent reasons (I forget
what they were) against employing a German. In the end, as a
compromise, it was settled that the governess should be
Swiss.

Mademoiselle Bock came from Geneva. She had a wooden,
expressionless face that looked like one of the carved sheep
one sees in Swiss toyshops. Her shape was suggestive of a
chalet, and her hats, constructed for the most part of
flannel and braid, completed the illusion by looking as
though they were pinned down on to her head by heavy
boulders. As for her conversation, it seemed to be regulated
on the principle of a cuckoo-clock. At intervals she would
emit sentences of varied lengths, but of an unvarying
cheerful smugness.

I was frankly disappointed. Nevertheless, although there was
nothing in either the character or the appearance of the new
governess that could possibly capture a child's imagination,
the mere novelty of having a governess was in itself
sufficiently exciting; and for a time everything went well.
Furthermore, Mademoiselle Bock's descriptions of her native
land, despite their aridity, began to rekindle my desire to
experience the joys of foreign travel. Dreams of an
idealised Switzerland began to weave themselves in my brain,
and in my imagination there formed itself a glowing vision
of the land of edelweiss and cowbells. Even the scrunched-up
appearance of the country on the map delighted me. Names
such as Grindelwald, Finsteraarhorn, Pontresina, Interlaken
filled me with ecstasy and I would repeat them to myself in
a kind of litany.

Near the house there was a little valley. A stream ran
through it and terminated in a pond. Out of this locality I
created an imaginary Switzerland. The stream was the Rhone
and the pond the lake of Geneva. The modest slopes on either
side of its muddy waters were given the high-sounding names
of Mont Blanc, the Dent du Midi and the Jungfrau. On the
banks of the pond I determined the sites of Geneva,
Lausanne, Vevey and Montreux. I engineered a waterfall and
called it the Pisse Vache, after the famous cascade near
Martigny. The frenzy of a demiurgic creation was upon me and
I got a delirious enjoyment out of this country of my
invention such as the real Switzerland has never been able
to afford me.

Mademoiselle Bock's attitude, when I explained it all to
her, was distinctly chilling. She appeared to take only the
mildest interest in this evocation of her native land, and
when I showed her with pride my greatest triumph of all, the
Pisse Vache, she merely remarked, "It is not a very nice
name."

I have subsequently learnt that the Swiss are apt to be a
little over-sensitive about their country. It is possible
that she may have thought that the whole thing was an
elaborate insult. Perhaps, however, it would be more
reasonable to attribute her attitude to the instinctive
distrust that governesses and schoolmasters are wont to
display towards any manifestations on the part of their
pupils which do not happen to be included in their own
categories of normal subjects for enthusiasm. Anyhow I was
deeply wounded by her lack of interest and it was the
beginning of the end of my friendly relationship with
Mademoiselle Bock.

A few weeks later I had an attack of what I imagine to have
been an early form of Weltschmerz. It was brought on, I
remember, by my reading a book called _The Island Home_,
the story of a remarkable group of boys and girls living on
an island off the west coast of Scotland. They led an
adventurous, heroic life, sailing on the sea, clambering
among cliffs, battling with eagles in their eyries and
rescuing one another, in a world seemingly devoid of parents
and governesses. How mean, how unsatisfying seemed, in
comparison, my own humdrum existence in the company of my
mother and my governess, with nothing more exciting to look
forward to than the daily walk or drive! I began to conceive
a violent distaste for Mademoiselle Bock's wooden
countenance. I felt that it was an unutterable humiliation
to be under her control.

The ebullition of my soul found an outlet in literature. I
spent the whole of one afternoon in composing a wild
Ossianic lament in which Mademoiselle Bock figured as a
tyrant and an oppressor. I wrote it in French, for I thought
that a foreign language would be a more suitable vehicle for
such lofty invective. My command of the French language was,
at that time, elementary in the extreme, and it must have
been incredibly funny. I can only remember that the first
sentence began with the words "Ah que je suis malheureuse."

As soon as I had completed the effusion, I fastened it with
a drawing-pin to Mademoiselle Bock's desk. I saw myself in
the rle of Luther nailing the Theses to the church door at
Wittenberg.

Instead of being annihilated, as I had hoped, by this savage
indictment, she merely took the document to my mother and
read it aloud to her with sarcastic comments.

Hostilities were now formally declared. I eagerly searched
my geography book for some damaging fact about Mademoiselle
Bock's native land. At the next geography lesson I opened my
atlas at the map of Switzerland, and pointing to it
derisively, cried, "Switzerland is only a third-rate
country. It has no coast-line!" I then proceeded to tear the
map of Switzerland into small pieces and threw them in her
face. Mademoiselle Bock retaliated by boxing my ears, and
the lesson ended in sound and fury.

After a day or two of punishments and sulking, a _modus
vivendi_ was finally arrived at which continued until the
unfortunate incident which led to Mademoiselle Bock's
departure.

During the summer months, when the weather grew warm, I used
to do my lessons in a little summer-house in the garden.
Close at hand, concealed in a shrubbery, there was a rustic
closet which Mademoiselle Bock, every morning, used to visit
with clockwork regularity. The fact that she was the only
person of the household to make use of it suggested to my
mind a diabolical plan of revenge.

The gardener's son had a natural talent for carpentering
and, with his assistance, I constructed a very ingenious
booby-trap. By an intricate system of leverage we succeeded
in so arranging matters that, when you sat down, a small
board came up and hit you a terrific blow on the behind.

As a matter of fact the experience was more alarming than
painful.

Next morning I anxiously awaited the moment for Mademoiselle
Bock's customary retirement and, as soon as she had set out,
I made my way swiftly through the bushes, crept up to the
door and listened for the result. I was rewarded by hearing
the sound of a dull whack followed by a startled cry. A few
moments later Mademoiselle Bock emerged with a distraught
countenance.

The practical joke had succeeded only too well and I was now
a little alarmed at its possible consequences. There was
just a chance, however, that the mishap might be attributed
to accident or that Mademoiselle Bock's native prudery might
restrain her from mentioning the occurrence. But, alas! the
evidence that the seat had been tampered with was too
obvious, and smarting Swiss buttocks overcame native
prudery. The matter was reported to headquarters and the
most horrible row ensued. My ingenuity was condemned in
scathing terms. Mademoiselle Bock threw up her situation,
declaring that she had not believed it possible that such a
detestable child could exist, and it was then and there
decided that it was high time for me to be sent to school.

[Illustration: Myself Aged Eight]




XII

THE FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL


My preconceptions of school life were based mainly on two
books, _Tom Brown's School Days_ and _Eric or Little by
Little_; I did not, however, find the latter wholly
convincing, and I suspected both of them of being slightly
out of date.

I was able, nevertheless, to construct an imaginary picture
of school life in which I could see myself figuring to my
own satisfaction. The scene in Tom Brown where the hero
successfully defends "little Arthur" against the bullies who
tried to stop him saying his prayers had an especial appeal
for me; not that I felt very deeply about prayers, but in
this case they seemed as good a pretext for heroism as any
other.

The school chosen for me was Elmley. My father and my uncles
had been there and it was considered to be one of the best
preparatory schools of the day. After the death of the
Headmaster, Mr. Gambril, Elmley began to go downhill and now
it has ceased to exist as a school. When I went to visit the
place some years ago with a view to refreshing ancient
memories, I noticed a definite alteration in the atmosphere;
there was a feeling of gaiety, of irresponsibility in the
air that had been absent in the old days, and I was told
that it had been converted into a lunatic asylum.

It was settled that I should start my school career with the
Summer Term, and at the end of April my mother and I went up
to spend a few days in London at my grandfather's house in
Belgrave Square. On the eve of the day upon which I was to
go to school I was taken to my first play, which was
"Charley's Aunt," and the excitement of this novel
experience distracted my thoughts from the ordeal that was
to take place on the morrow.

But next morning I awoke with a sinking sensation of
impending misfortune. Waking up in my comfortable bedroom,
with the sun streaming in over the tall trees in the square,
I was distraught with panic, and I experienced all the vain
regret of one who has failed too late to realise when he was
well off.

The early part of the morning was spent in a final round of
shopping to complete the purchase of my school outfit. I
remember having to try on a bowler hat. It was the first
time I had ever worn this uncomfortable and slightly
ridiculous form of headgear; at the moment it seemed to me
to be an emblem of sorrow, almost a crown of thorns.

     *     *     *     *     *

Elmley was about an hour's journey by train from London. It
had been arranged that I should go down early in the day
with my mother, so that I might become familiar with my new
surroundings before the other boys arrived. The school was
quite close to the station. It looked at first sight
pleasant enough. A square Georgian house of grey stucco; in
front of it a wide asphalt playing-ground enclosed by a low
wall and flanked by constructions of more recent date, on
one side a rather ugly chapel and on the other a
conglomeration of outhouses, fives courts, offices and a
swimming-bath. The path from the station led through the
playing-fields. A tall row of elms ran parallel to the
house, and on the farther side of it (which was really the
front) a group of ilexes and conifers sheltered the house
from the main road.

Apprehension must have reduced my personality and magnified
external objects; for everything at Elmley appeared to me to
be of immense size. The elm trees seemed gigantic, the house
of Cyclopean dimensions and the playing-fields as vast as
the savannahs. For years afterwards I continued to think of
everything at Elmley as being over life-size, so that when I
visited it again in recent years the scenery seemed to have
considerably shrunk.

We were greeted by Mrs. Gambril, the Headmaster's wife. Her
round face with its rather bare expression and her sleek
auburn hair dragged off the forehead reminded me forcibly of
a horse-chestnut. She was dressed very fashionably, yet she
had the unmistakable air of an "official" woman, as it might
be a female warder or the superintendent of a workhouse. She
had a sister, Miss Temple, who helped her to run the
non-didactic departments of the school. Miss Temple was a
replica of her sister, but with the subtle distinction of
spinsterhood; she was slightly more angular and less suave.

Mr. Gambril joined us at luncheon. His appearance was
surprising. I had never in my life seen anyone quite so
yellow. His skin was yellow, his hair was yellow and he had
a small yellow moustache carefully waxed at the ends. I
discovered later that he smoked cigarettes incessantly
(indeed one never saw him without a cigarette in his mouth),
and that was the cause of his yellowness. I suppose the
yellow stains that one sometimes sees on the fingers of
cigarette-smokers must have spread over his entire body. He
certainly looked as though tobacco juice flowed in his
veins, and whenever he grew angry there would be an
additional rush of it to his face, which became a deep
mahogany. He had very small light blue eyes that appeared
all the more striking for being set in their complementary
colour. He wore a grey frock-coat and one of those flat,
elaborate satin ties folded like a table-napkin and fastened
with a large diamond scarf-pin.

At luncheon that day nobody could have been more urbane. He
was exercising the charm specially reserved for parents. He
patted me on the head, smiled at me and said, "We shall make
a man of him." (That dreadful "manliness" again!)

So far it had not been very alarming; a polite and amiable
host, two benevolent middle-aged ladies and a pleasant
dining-room looking out on to a garden. One might have been
visiting neighbours. I felt slightly reassured, and thought
that I might perhaps be going to enjoy being at school.

This emotional respite lasted until my mother's departure.
Then, as the train steamed out of the station, I was
suddenly overcome by the sensation that it was bearing away
from me not only my mother but the whole of that home life
to which, in spite of a certain ennui and restlessness, I
had become fondly attached, leaving me alone in a new and
unsympathetic world.

Mr. Gambril had accompanied us to the station. On the way
back I noticed a distinct change in his manner. He was no
longer the amiable friend of the family. An official chasm
had opened between us. He seemed all of a sudden to have
grown immensely large and I infinitesimally small. The
personal note had vanished. He now spoke to me in a voice
that might have been directed at any small boy.

On returning to the house he took me to his study, that grim
chamber, the scene of many a future agony. My mind, from the
stress of emotion, had become a hyper-sensitive retina upon
which every detail stood out with an almost painful
distinctness. The rows of solemn-looking dictionaries and
primers on the book-shelves, the bust of an elderly
gentleman of forbidding aspect on the mantelpiece (Mr.
Gambril Senior, the former Headmaster), and in a corner near
the window an ominous group of canes and birches.

Mr. Gambril selected a number of books from the shelves and
handed them to me. "These are the books you will require.
Put them in your locker and don't lose them! You will be
shown where your locker is. Lucy dear!" he called--Mrs.
Gambril appeared--"take this boy and show him his locker."

Mrs. Gambril led me through a green baize door that
separated the Headmaster's quarters from the rest of the
school. She showed me the different classrooms, the huge
Assembly Room that could accommodate the entire school
(there were over a hundred boys in all) and the Lobby, a
wide and rather dark passage running down the middle of the
building and leading into the Assembly Room on one side and
into the smaller classrooms on the other. At the end of the
Lobby there was a large glass door opening on to the
playground. My newly-acquired school books were deposited in
my locker, including my other belongings and the beloved
four volumes of _British Birds_ with coloured
illustrations, which my mother rather reluctantly had
allowed me to take with me.

The barren appearance of the classrooms and the general
aspect of the school furniture struck a chill into my heart.
I felt as strange, as forlorn as if I had been visiting the
mountains of the moon. Everything looked so uncomfortable,
so hard and utilitarian, and the air was heavy with the
cheerless smell of fresh paint and furniture polish.

In the playground outside I caught sight of two disconsolate
figures. "Those," said Mrs. Gambril, "are the two other new
boys, Arthur and Creeling."

The name Arthur revived memories of _Tom Brown_. But at
that moment I was very far from wishing to have to champion
anyone. A" little Arthur" would have only been an additional
embarrassment.

Mrs. Gambril left me in their company. Arthur was not in the
least like his namesake. To begin with he was one of the
ugliest little boys I had ever seen. His face looked as
though it belonged to the vegetable rather than to the human
anatomy. His features gave one the impression of being
bruised and swollen, and his eyes were red with weeping.
Creeling was better-looking, but he had a sanctimonious
expression that repelled me. He looked like a miniature
curate.

Upon seeing me they both made a visible effort to pull
themselves together and to appear a little less despondent,
but it was not very successful. I, myself, was hovering on
the brink of tears.

Creeling, who was a little older than Arthur and myself,
tried to assume a moral leadership. "You must never," he
advised us, "let other fellows find out the Christian names
of your sisters."

"I haven't any sisters," I replied with some asperity. In
spite of my woefully flagging spirits I resented his
attitude of Mentor.

As Arthur appeared to be practically speechless, the
conversation, such as it was, was carried on between
Creeling and myself. Timidly and as though we felt we were
trespassing, we visited the playing-fields, the cricket
pavilion, the fives courts, the lavatories, the swimming
bath, and Creeling made an unsuccessful attempt to get into
the chapel.

"They have a service every day," he remarked, "and on
Sundays three times."

The prospect seemed to cheer him, but Arthur gulped and said
"How awful!" in a horror-stricken voice, and his face grew
more swollen and bruised in appearance than ever.

After a time the other boys began to arrive. Creeling,
Arthur and I clung together disconsolately in a corner of
the Lobby. I prayed that we might remain unobserved for as
long as possible. Hitherto the presence of my contemporaries
at children's parties or at the dancing class had never
inspired me with the slightest feeling of shyness; the
background of home life had given me a certain sense of
security, and on such occasions there had always been a
mother, a nurse or a governess in the offing. Now, however,
I was bereft of these aids to confidence, and I knew that I
would have to fend for myself.

It was not long before we were noticed. A group of boys from
the far end of the Lobby bore down upon us with whoops and
cries of "New boys!" It was an awful moment; a moment of
suspense such as explorers must go through on the appearance
of an unknown savage tribe.

These cannibals, however, proved comparatively friendly. It
is true there were one or two youths whose practice it was
to kick new boys, but it was done with an absence of malice
that made me realise that it was a formality rather than an
act of hostility. The ordeal of being asked one's name was
not so terrible after all, and I began to gather confidence.

I created a favourable impression by exhibiting my books of
British birds. Next to being good at games a taste for
natural history was highest in popular esteem; but I was not
aware of this at the time, and I fear it was merely one of
those impulses which sometimes tempt us to try and enhance
our personality by reverting to our possessions. Anyhow the
move was a successful one, and the mild popularity I
acquired by offering to lend some of the volumes helped to
carry me through supper, which would otherwise have
depressed me with its long refectory tables covered with
coarse linen, the plates and teacups of monumental solidity,
the chunks of bread-and-butter and slices of stringy cold
meat of a similar calibre and the over-sweetened tepid tea
poured out of metal jugs, gulped down to the accompaniment
of a deafening roar of conversation.

As soon as supper was over, a bell rang and we all trooped
into the chapel. Mr. Gambril made his appearance clad in a
surplice. He was followed by the assistant masters. After a
short address on the subject of the reassembling of school,
to which I listened in a spirit of reverent attention, there
followed prayers and a hymn. The lamplight, the music and
that odd musty smell peculiar to English Protestant churches
combined to work upon my feelings. My eyes filled with tears
and everything became a blur.

In my dormitory there were seven or eight small boys of
about the same age as myself. Apart from Creeling, Arthur
and myself they were all second term boys and they all
seemed to be suffering from home-sickness. From the other
dormitories there came shouts of hilarity, but in ours
depression reigned. After we had undressed and stowed away
our clothes in wicker baskets under our beds, a manservant
walked through the rooms ringing a bell, the signal for
private devotions. Each boy knelt down by his bedside.
(There was not going to be any "little Arthur" nonsense
about prayers.) Soon afterwards Mrs. Gambril appeared,
followed by the Matron, and said good-night to each of us in
turn. This was a special act of kindness to new boys on the
first evening and the ceremony was not repeated on
subsequent nights. Finally, one of the assistant masters
came in and turned out the gas.

Misery descended upon me with the darkness. For a long time
I lay awake. So apparently did most of the other occupants
of the dormitory, for the air was full of the sound of
muffled sobbing.

Through a chink in the blinds I could see that there was
bright moonlight outside, and through the half-open window I
could hear the nocturnal sounds of the country, the lowing
of cattle in a neighbouring field, the cry of a night-bird,
the whistle of a distant train (wending its way northwards
perhaps, in the direction of Althrey), and from the garden
below there came up a faint scent of lilac. Now that the
turmoil of human contact had died away, all these things
reminded me poignantly of my far-off home. My mother, the
servants, the garden with its flowers and its birds,
appeared to me like the sad ghosts of a past that was now
gone for ever. I even thought regretfully of Mademoiselle
Bock.

I remembered the four volumes of _British Birds_ in my
locker. These seemed now to constitute the only link with
home life.




XIII

SADISTIC INTERLUDE


I suppose Elmley was a good school in its way. It was
expensive. We were well educated (according to the average
educational standard of English preparatory schools in those
days). The food given us was of a quality to preclude any
desire for over-indulgence. Games and religion were both
compulsory. The Arts were discouraged. Care was taken of us
when we were ill. The only really serious drawback to the
school was the fact that the Headmaster happened to be a
sadist.

Nobody will deny that the majority of small boys between the
ages of nine and fourteen are horrid little beasts and
deserve to be frightened and bullied. But I find it
difficult to believe that it is necessary for them to be
tortured and terrorised to the extent that we were tortured
and terrorised by Mr. Gambril.

When I say that Mr. Gambril was a sadist I am perhaps laying
myself open to the charge of inaccuracy. To compare him to
the Marquis de Sade, it might be objected, would be doing an
injustice to that wayward nobleman. Mr. Gambril's cruelty
was of a far more inhuman type. It was cruelty for cruelty's
sake, pure unadulterated cruelty, and there was no
extenuating circumstances of sexual aberration.

Mr. Gambril had elevated the faculty for inspiring terror to
a fine art. There was, to start with, something peculiarly
blood-curdling in this potentiality for frightfulness being
concealed beneath so dapper an exterior. Mr. Gambril's
spruce urbanity would, in a twinkling of an eye, be horribly
transformed. It was as though a neat-looking bantam's egg
were suddenly to hatch forth a viper. The phenomenon (to
which I have already referred) of the tobacco-juice rushing
to his face, turning it from its habitual yellow to a deep
mahogany, was in itself alarming enough. In addition to
this, his small light blue eyes would glare with a fixed,
snake-like fury, and the ends of his waxed moustache would
quiver like twin serpents' tongues. All, without exception,
the older and the younger boys alike, were terrified of him,
and, long after I had left the school, the memory of him
continued to haunt me as an unforgettable horror.

His father, old Mr. Gambril, whose bust I had seen on the
mantelpiece in the study, and who had been Headmaster before
him, was alleged to have been even worse than his son,
though it hardly seemed possible. It was recorded of him
that he was a perfect old devil. One of the favourite
punishments of this charming old gentleman had been to make
boys hold up their hands with their fingers bunched together
and, on this sensitive apex, he would whack them with a cane
or one of those thin Greek Primers bound in cardboard. I
imagine that on a cold, frosty morning this mode of
correction must have been particularly painful.

The present Headmaster, however, had a stock of tortures
that were equally ingenious. He would pull one up by the
hair near one's ears. He would hit boys on the shins with a
cricket stump. He had a way of pinching his victims that was
positively excruciating. Whenever I tried to do the same
thing to a boy smaller than myself it never seemed to be
quite so effective.

He excelled also in the administration of mental tortures.
The mark books were always examined at meal-times. They were
laid before him in piles as he sat at luncheon or supper. He
would examine them in a leisurely way and call up any boys
who had been given bad marks. It would be difficult to
describe adequately all the horror and agony that being
"called up" entailed. It nearly always involved the fearful
pinching and hair-pulling, but, more often than not, you
were sent back to your place with the instructions to come
to the Headmaster's study as soon as the meal was over. This
meant further tortures, culminating in a caning. The actual
punishments, however, were less agonising than the period of
anticipation, the suspense of waiting to be called. If one
had received a bad mark during the morning, the luncheon
hour would be spent in an agony of fear. Mr. Gambril looked
through the books at random, in no particular order, so that
it was a matter of chance whether one would be called up at
luncheon or supper. I can still remember that terrible,
devastating panic that seemed to paralyse the digestive
organs and deprive one of appetite, and if, as often
happened, the fatal summons was delayed till supper-time it
was impossible to eat anything during either meal. One boy,
when the time came for him to be sent for, was actually
sick, and it is surprising that this did not happen more
frequently. I find it hard to believe that this particular
form of terrorisation can really have been good for growing
boys.

Mr. Gambril occasionally gave vent to a sort of grim humour
and invented punishments that were highly capricious and
fanciful. I remember that once, in a blithe,
Gather-ye-microbes-while-ye-may spirit, he made one of his
victims go down on his hands and knees and lick a straight
line on the floor in front of the assembled school.

And yet nobody ever dreamt of complaining to his parents.
Some years after I had left Elmley, my mother came to hear
of Mr. Gambril's cruelty. She was surprised and horrified,
and said to me, "Why on earth didn't you tell me? I would
have taken you away at once and sent you to another school."
That was perhaps one of the reasons of my suffering Mr.
Gambril in silence. To be sent to another school! It might
have been just as bad, perhaps even worse. And, in any case,
my complaints would probably have been discredited at the
time and merely led to further punishment. All the grown-ups
seemed to be in a league against one, and it is this
sensation of a hopeless contest that turns most small boys
into fatalists. Furthermore, strange as it may seem, there
was a sentiment of loyalty to the school. One can understand
a man whose life is devoted to teaching small boys behaving
occasionally like a wild beast. It is said that one cannot
touch pitch without being defiled, and I suppose it is a
difficult task to remain a schoolmaster for any length of
time without the temper being permanently damaged and the
mind contaminated (although some people seem to have
achieved it). But Mr. Gambril frankly overshot the mark, and
one cannot help feeling that a man so obviously afflicted
with blood lust, coupled with an uncontrollable temper,
would have done better to choose some other vocation.




XIV

ELMLEY


The first few days at Elmley I spent in a benumbed
condition. It was as though my transplantation from home to
strange surroundings and an unaccustomed mode of life
required a completely new orientation of nervous energy,
bringing into play an entirely different set of muscles and
ganglions. The rigid routine, the novelty of having to do my
lessons in a class, in competition and under strict
discipline, seemed to invest them with an unwonted and
formidable aspect. For the first time social discrimination
became a matter of importance. One's behaviour had to be
adjusted accordingly. It became necessary to exercise a nice
judgment between the people to whom deference was due, those
whom one could treat on terms of equality and those who
might be looked on as inferiors and who could be snubbed and
bullied.

The seeds of snobbishness soon began to sprout. One day,
during the intervals between the classes, I was sitting in
the lobby drearily musing, when a red-headed freckled boy a
year or two older than myself approached me. He was a
distant relation, and he informed me that he had been
deputed by his parents to look after me. He did not seem a
particularly attractive youth, nor was he a very prominent
member of the school. I was only moderately grateful for his
patronage, and, much as I had need of them, I made no
attempt to avail myself of his proffered services.

Creeling, Arthur and I were naturally a good deal thrown
together at first. They were new boys like me, they were in
the same class and in the same dormitory. Of the two I very
much preferred Arthur. He was hideous, he was a nonentity,
yet there was something peculiarly disarming about his
inarticulateness and his dogged resistance to any kind of
outside influence, whether for good or for evil. He sank at
once to the bottom of the class and seemed perfectly
contented to remain there. His clumsiness was almost
preternatural. He was always knocking things over. No
teacup, no inkpot could resist his devastating approach.
Indeed they seemed to crash instinctively to the ground when
he drew near, and it was as though inanimate objects, in his
presence, were roused to a kind of gravitational frenzy.
Once, when we were going into chapel, he contrived to upset
the lectern. But this may perhaps have been done
deliberately, for he adopted a sort of "non possumus"
attitude towards every form of religious worship. During the
service he puffed and groaned, and refused to join in the
hymns; upon being ordered to "sing up" he merely emitted a
gruff baa like an asthmatic sheep. At games he was
thoroughly inefficient. When playing cricket he invariably
managed to hit the stumps with his bat, and whenever he
threw the ball he nearly always succeeded in hurting
somebody. Abuse and mockery left him equally unmoved.

Creeling was of a very different type. He was a smug,
self-satisfied little person and he was extremely religious.
He always looked as if he had just risen from prayer. He was
fairly intelligent and very hard-working, and he was always
second in his class. He never misbehaved himself and never
got bad marks. He was a sneak. Whenever he detected an abuse
he was quite capable of reporting it to the Matron or to one
of the masters, actuated by an overweening sense of duty.
But he was cunning enough never to be caught out.

I ended by taking a violent dislike to him, and remembering
the advice he had given me on the first day of the term
about not divulging the Christian names of my sisters, I
managed to spread the rumour that he had two sisters called
Tabitha and Jane. Like Putois, in the story by Anatole
France, Tabitha and Jane soon became real personages, and
the unfortunate Creeling was never able to live them down.
Whenever he was seen writing a letter, he would be assailed
by cries of "Hullo, Creeling! Writing to Tabitha and Jane?"

When I first went to school I seem to have had curiously
exaggerated impressions of relative age. I was then nine,
and boys of fourteen appeared to me to be immeasurably
older, almost grown up; and there seemed to be little
difference between the monitors and the masters. Like most
small boys I was an ardent hero-worshipper. The particular
hero that took my fancy at Elmley was a boy called
Longworth. He was the Captain of the Second Eleven. He
seemed to me to embody every possible perfection. He was a
tall, athletic, fair-haired youth with regular features and
an engaging smile. He reminded me of one of Flaxman's
illustrations to the _Iliad_. In the normal course of
school life such a paragon would hardly be likely to pay any
attention to so humble an individual as myself, or to be
aware even of my existence. Perhaps, if I were to
distinguish myself by unusual prowess at cricket... but, as
far as my skill at cricket was concerned, this would be out
of the question for a long time to come. How I wished that
it had been Longworth's parents who had asked him to look
after me! I wondered if anything might possibly be done
through domestic channels. I wrote to my mother, imploring
her to make inquiries among her acquaintances as to whether
any of them knew some people called Longworth who had a son
at Elmley. I tried to find out where he lived. But all this
got me no farther. It seemed a hopeless quest, and I had to
resign myself to gazing at him wistfully from afar.

     *     *     *     *     *

At Elmley the thing that I missed more than anything else
was the possibility of pursuing my ornithological studies.
The playing-fields were extensive and there was a good many
likely-looking trees and hedges, but (like the coppice at
Arley) no birds ever nested there, and the bird-life, such
as it was, merely tended to sadden me and to call forth
regretful memories. The swallows that hovered over the
cricket ground, the swifts that flew screaming past the
schoolroom windows while we were toiling away at Latin or
arithmetic, filled me with an aching desire for home. I
pined for the meadows and woods of Althrey. I thought of the
play of Schiller I had read so laboriously with Mademoiselle
Bock, and the description of how Mary Stuart pined for
France. My soul breathed out a message to the swallows for
them to bear homeward, just as the unhappy queen
commissioned the fleeting clouds with a message for the
country that she loved.

One morning, during an arithmetic lesson, there rose up in
my mind's eye so vivid a picture of a certain hedgerow at
Althrey where, about the same time last year, a
golden-crested wren had built its nest, that I burst into
tears. I found it impossible to explain what had really
upset me, and so I complained of feeling queer in the
stomach. The result was that I was sent off to the Matron's
room and given a dose of castor-oil. As good a cure as any
other, I daresay, for sentimental visions of this kind. The
only form of natural history cultivated at Elmley was the
collecting of beetles, cockchafers, caterpillars and kindred
insects. This was known comprehensively as "bug-hunting."
And, in this connection, an incident arose which may be
quoted as a fair example of the ridiculous quandaries in
which schoolmasters sometimes find themselves placed.

Late one afternoon, during a half-holiday, the bell tolled
and an assembly was called. There was always a mysterious
excitement attaching to the calling of an assembly. It
generally meant that some grave scandal had occurred. The
air would be heavy with an atmosphere of crime. There would
be wild speculation as to the nature of the offence and its
perpetrators. Even the most righteous would be obsessed by a
sense of guilt, for the crimes committed were frequently
unconscious ones.

The whole school trooped into the large Assembly Room, where
the Headmaster stood at his desk, wearing an air of
tremendous gravity.

"Boys," he said, "in connection with this new craze for the
collecting of insects, a very unfortunate word has arisen. I
believe that those who indulge in this practice are known as
bug-hunters, and the expression to which I am referring is a
contraction of that word. Now, boys, I have not the least
doubt that this word has been employed in complete
ignorance. I am convinced that its true significance is one
that is undreamt of by any of you. But, in point of fact, it
is a very horrible and disgraceful expression, one that
would bring a blush to the cheeks of your mothers and
sisters, and one that no gentleman would ever dream of
using.

"The word must henceforth be expunged from your vocabulary,
and any boy heard making use of it in future will render
himself liable to very severe punishment. Boys, you may go."




XV

GAMES AND LITERATURE


There were two very large flies in the ointment of my school
life. The Headmaster was one of them, the other was the fact
that I was not good at games.

At Elmley you were made to feel, by a system of subtle
propaganda, that organised games were the touchstone of
character and that, unless you happened to excel in them,
there was little likelihood of your ever being good for
anything in later life. Of course work had its importance
too; but it did not carry with it the kind of personal
esteem one coveted. Anything like imagination, fantasy or
artistic talent was naturally at a discount.

In the beginning I used to enjoy playing cricket. But there
was far too much of it, and the games went on far too long.
They seemed interminable, and there were so many other
interests I found more engrossing. I didn't always feel in a
mood to "play up," and in the midst of this eternal
obsession of games I often longed to be allowed to indulge
in other pursuits, such as the study of natural history,
reading, drawing, music or even riding. The Elmley creed
that games were the criterion of ultimate failure or success
often aroused in me a feeling of despair and caused moods of
sullen depression. I was fairly popular with both the
masters and the boys. (One had, of course, one's ups and
downs.) But the fact that I was not good at games thwarted
my youthful ambition and prevented me from cutting a figure
as I should have liked to do. There became implanted in me a
sense of inferiority from which it took me a long time to
recover.

There was another thing about school life that affected me
disagreeably at first, and that was the entire absence of
any kind of privacy. It was impossible ever to be alone. Any
signs of wishing to withdraw from the society of one's
fellows was looked upon as eccentric and reprehensible. As a
matter of fact there were certain hiding-places I discovered
to which I could retreat when I wanted to be alone, but I
always did so with a sense of guilt and in fear of being
found out. I suppose that the desire for solitude on the
part of a small boy should be considered abnormal, youth
being by nature gregarious, and the saying that an
Englishman's home is his castle (which would seem to suggest
a certain taste for privacy) only applies to grown-ups.
Anyhow it seemed unlucky that I was never able to strike the
golden mean. At home, in the early part of my childhood, I
had often longed for playmates. Now I longed equally for
occasional moments of solitude.

On Sunday afternoons and on wet days we were allowed a
respite from games and were able to indulge in reading and
other frivolous occupations. Whenever it rained heavily
enough to be considered prejudicial to our health, a bell
was rung and we had to go indoors. Also in winter, whenever
there was a very thick fog. Many a time I welcomed the sound
of that bell, which meant a temporary relief from the
tedious tyranny of games and a return to some engrossing
story-book I was reading, and how often during the Winter
Term, I used to watch, with eager interest, the fog growing
thicker and thicker until at last one could no longer see
the football.

Literature, at Elmley, was not absolutely tabooed. There was
a school library from which we could borrow books every
Sunday. The two most popular authors of the day were Henty
and Jules Verne. They were respectively the Apostles of
Manliness and Imagination. Boys could practically be divided
into two categories, those who liked Henty and those who
preferred Jules Verne. Henty had the larger following. I
sampled a few of his works, but I soon found out that there
was a disappointing monotony in his literary invention. The
stories were, all of them, very much alike; there was for
ever the same boy-hero, merely transposed to different
historical and geographical backgrounds, in an atmosphere
overcharged with a rather mawkish patriotism.

Jules Verne, on the other hand, led one into a new universe
of marvels. His books comprised every subject that one could
possibly dream of. His readers were introduced to every
quarter of the globe, were invited to explore every
possibility of the Future. In those days, on the eve of the
appearance of motor-cars, submarines and aeroplanes, his
novels had a prophetic glamour. In one of them, _The Castle
of the Carpathians_, there was even a forecaste of the
Talkies. Such books as these, one felt, might have been
approved of for their mere educational value. Geography
could be learnt more graphically and more agreeably in a
story like _Round the World in Eighty Days_ than in any
Primer of the school curriculum. Yet Jules Verne was not
wholly approved of by the school authorities. I suppose it
was feared that his influence might lead to dangerous
excesses of the imagination.

The Imagination! That seemed to be a bugbear at Elmley. The
word "imagination" was always used in a depreciative sense.
In some of my old school reports I find the sentence "Too
apt to be ruled by his imagination" occurring several times.
The Matron at Elmley, who had apparently been making a study
of my character during a period of illness when I was
confined to the Matron's room, remarked that my principal
defect was that I was too imaginative. Imagination was
certainly no help to me at Elmley, and undoubtedly Jules
Verne did a good deal towards fostering this undesirable
quality. I remember once, inspired by _The Clipper of the
Clouds_, spending a wet afternoon trying to construct a
model flying machine. It looked very nice and complicated,
but as far as flying was concerned it was a failure. My
effort elicited a reproof from the Headmaster, who happened
to see it. "Men," he said, "were never meant to fly;
otherwise God would have given them wings." The argument was
convincing, if not strikingly novel, having been used
previously, if I am not mistaken, by Mr. Chadband; and a
potential inventor was discouraged.




XVI

BOXHILL


Towards the end of the Summer Term there took place the
annual excursion to Boxhill, the great yearly Beano. Early
in the morning the whole school embarked in a special train
to spend the day on that Delectable Mountain. I remember, in
those days, before I knew what the Continent was like,
Boxhill always struck me as being a very foreign-looking
place. The closely-cropped brown turf, the stunted, thickly
foliaged trees and the white, chalky soil were unlike
anything I had ever seen before. I remember thinking that
the scenery must have resembled that of Mount Ida or the
Sabine hills.

We used to arrive about nine o'clock in the morning, and,
until the luncheon hour, we were allowed to pass the time in
whatever way we liked. At one o'clock a whistle was blown
and we assembled under the trees. Tablecloths were spread
upon the ground, and the food, consisting of mutton pies,
cold meats, hard-boiled eggs, salads, jam puffs and
ginger-beer, was surprisingly excellent; which proved that
the school cook could, on occasions, rise above the usual
low level of his fare. The alfresco meal seemed doubly
delightful after the long succession of monotonous,
tasteless food, the unappetising course of stringy meats and
greasy soups, that detestable concoction known as "hash," a
sort of scavenger's potpourri, those potatoes that seemed to
embody the worst characteristics of both dampness and
dryness and, at the same time, to be suffering from every
known disease of the vegetable kingdom, and that concomitant
horror "greens," a tough, tepid packet of some kind of
nauseous cabbage, pressed down and cut into squares.

Pretentious but unskilled cooks often seek to disguise their
lack of talent under a wealth of ornament and to render it,
at least, pleasant to the eye if not to the palate. At
Elmley, the cook seemed determined that his handiwork should
be no whited sepulchre and that its aspect should be as
unpleasant as its taste. Thus, on Boxhill day, the simple,
well-cooked food, that both looked and tasted good, came as
a glad relief; in addition to which there was the primeval
joy of eating in the open air.

As soon as luncheon was over, the traditional battle between
two rival armies took place. This was known as "The Rag."
The school was divided into two camps. One was commanded by
the Head Monitor, the other by the Captain of the Cricket
Eleven. I found out that the latter camp was considered to
be the most elegant, and I felt slightly humiliated when I
was told off to be a member of the Monitor's side. I believe
that, in this mimic warfare, there were definite rules as to
what might or might not be done, but, just as in real
warfare, nobody paid the slightest attention to them. The
main object was to capture flags and prisoners, and the side
that took the greatest number was considered to have won.
Fair means and foul were employed both in aggression and in
defence, and sometimes boys were quite badly hurt.
Nevertheless, it was great fun rushing about in the woods,
making as much noise as possible, taking flags and
prisoners, eluding would-be captors and rallying to the
war-cry of your side.

The festive atmosphere of the day, the general feeling of
excitement must, I fancy, have transformed the place into
something a little different to what it really was, for, on
revisiting it not so many years afterwards, I was unable to
locate any of the spots I had thought to be indelibly
stamped on my memory. I have noticed that, under the stress
of some particular emotion, I am apt to carry away highly
coloured visions of places that do not correspond with
reality, which is no doubt why, upon revisiting them, I have
so often been puzzled and disappointed.

After the battle had been raging for an hour or so I was
sent out as a scout, to reconnoitre. The Captain had chosen
me, not on account of any prowess I had displayed, but
merely because I happened to be on the spot at the time.
Nevertheless, I felt very proud at having been selected, and
I set out, in a valiant mood, determined to distinguish
myself in some way or other. I had not gone far when a
figure leapt out upon me from behind a tree. I had just made
for myself a formidable cudgel and, with it, I hit my
assailant a terrific crack over the head. Almost
simultaneously I realised that it was Longworth. He
staggered forward and fell to the ground. To my horror I saw
blood pouring down his face and on to his shirt. As a matter
of fact it was only his nose that was bleeding, but the
spectacle of the fallen hero petrified me with fear. I
remained rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do.

A crowd of boys appeared, clustering round the murderous
scene. I heard someone say "He's killed Longworth!" A
momentary truce was declared, while the resuscitated
Longworth struggled to his feet. He gave me an angry glance,
and muttering "You little brute!" walked away, with dignity,
through the trees.

He was not really hurt, and the incident was a trivial one
in the wear and tear of the afternoon's warfare, but it
embittered the rest of the day for me. It seemed a
particularly malevolent stroke of ill-fortune that I should
have injured just the one person I most wished to
propitiate. I had craved for Longworth's attention and only
too successfully had I succeeded in attracting it.

     *     *     *     *     *

It was long past sundown when the school reassembled on the
platform of Boxhill station. After this glorious day of
liberty the return journey was tinged with an "after the
party" feeling. Most of us were rather exhausted by our
activities, although there were one or two boys whose
heartiness nothing could tire, and who continued, throughout
the journey back, to be uproarious to a weary audience. My
unfortunate experience with Longworth continued to haunt me
and, although the incident seemed to have passed unnoticed
in the general turmoil and was not even mentioned among the
various more exciting chronicles of the day's exploits,
self-consciousness and remorse magnified it into vast
proportions.

Longworth himself showed no desire to chastise my
impertinence. I passed close to him on the station platform
and I realised, from his attitude of Olympian contempt, that
the incident had been dismissed and that I had been
consigned once more to the oblivion out of which, for one
brief moment, I had poked my head.

However, I was not going to get off as lightly as that.
Longworth had a younger brother, about two years older than
me. Longworth Minor was almost as good-looking as his
brother, but he had not the bland appearance of a Greek
hero; he looked more like a well-groomed hawk. He adored his
elder brother, and it very soon became obvious that his
attitude towards me had become decidedly Corsican. I imagine
that Longworth Major, feeling that any further notice of the
Boxhill incident would be beneath his dignity, had deputed
his younger brother to deal with the situation. The first
manifestation of hostility took place on the following
morning, and I received a savage kick on the shins as I
passed through the lobby on my way to early school.

Longworth Minor had the reputation of being a bully. He was
in the Third Form and was a member (if not the actual
ringleader) of a very objectionable band of youths in the
same form, whose object in life seemed to be to torment and
harass the smaller boys whenever they got a chance. They had
constituted themselves into a sort of Vehmgericht, a Council
of Ten, and the most sinister rumours of their terroristic
methods were being circulated.

The Third Form classroom was at the far end of one of the
wings and was reached by a flight of stairs leading to that
classroom only. Opening out of it was a smaller room that
was never used, partly because it was rather dark and partly
because there was no other access to it except through the
Third Form classroom itself. This room had been organised by
Longworth Minor and his friends as a torture-chamber for the
punishment of anyone who happened to incur their
displeasure.

Those who had suffered in the torture-chamber gave the most
hair-raising accounts of it. One marvelled at their ever
having managed to survive. The tortures were various and
refined. One of them consisted in placing the victim's
wrists in two jagged, semicircular holes cut in the top edge
of a locker and then pressing down the lid. Another
consisted in tying the victim's hands behind his back and
pulling them upwards by means of a rope slung over a beam, a
form of torture much favoured by the Spanish Inquisition and
in medival Germany. In the art of inflicting physical agony
even Mr. Gambril might have learnt a thing or two.

The dark exploits of the band spread terror among the
smaller boys. The staircase leading to the Third Form
classroom, up which, one felt, victims might at any moment
be dragged to their doom, acquired all the grim associations
of the Bridge of Sighs. My own classroom was at the end of
the passage, close to the fatal staircase, and I was
obliged, in going to and from it, to pass in front of this
dangerous spot, where there were always two or three Third
Form boys hanging about.

So far I had succeeded in escaping their attentions, but
after the Boxhill episode and the evidence of Longworth
Minor's hostility I knew that I had been marked down.
Creeling, who always seemed to be _au courant_ of every
intrigue, confirmed my fears. "I should advise you to be on
your guard," he said to me one day. "You are next on the
list."

It was one of Creeling's characteristics that he was always
warning people of any unpleasantness that might be coming to
them. There was no doubt that he meant well, but people who
acquire a reputation for "meaning well" are not as a rule
very popular with the recipients of their good intentions.

During the days that followed I crept about the passages
with a gnawing fear in my heart, trying to make myself as
inconspicuous as possible. The mere appearance in the
distance of a Third Form boy filled me with panic. I was
unable to keep my mind on my work, nor could I sleep at
night. My terror was so great that I seriously contemplated
running away from school. I can say that I now know from
personal experience what must have been the sensations of
those who were marked down by the Inquisition, expecting to
be pounced upon at any moment by the "black-cowled minions
of the Church."

In a school of the size of Elmley it was easier for abuses
to escape the vigilance of the masters, and a rainy
afternoon was always fraught with danger; circumstances were
favourable to indoor mischief, for boys were left more or
less to their own devices. But there was generally one of
the assistant masters on duty in the big schoolroom, and I
used to take my book there and read; or else I would go and
practise on the piano in the music-room. In both of these
places I was comparatively safe from aggression. Anyone of
at all a sensitive disposition who has been subjected to
bullying at school may, I think, safely look forward to no
greater anguish or mind during the rest of his life. The
strain of having to be perpetually on my guard was beginning
to tell, and had it gone on much longer my health would
probably have broken down, which would perhaps have been the
best solution, for in the Matron's room I should at least
have been immune from aggression.

One day a rumour began to be spread abroad that the evil
practices of the Third Form had been discovered. It became
known that Longworth Minor and several of his friends had
been birched by the Headmaster. In the sermon on the
following Sunday there was an indictment of bullying.
Although the whole business remained shrouded in mystery,
there seemed no doubt that some very drastic steps had been
taken to put an end to the activities of the Third Form
Camorra. Longworth Minor abandoned his attitude of
hostility, the other members of his band seemed thoroughly
cowed, and there was no more talk about the torture-chamber.

Later on it transpired that it had been Creeling who had
reported the matter to the Headmaster, that he had, in
fact, "sneaked." When openly accused, he denied it
indignantly. But, from what we knew of some of his previous
actions, and from other evidence, there seemed no doubt that
he had been guilty of this breach of school etiquette.
Despite the fact that he ought in reality to have been
regarded in the light of a saviour (for he had definitely
removed an incubus of terror), any form of sneaking was
considered, according to the school code of honour, to be a
disgraceful act.

I, who more than anyone had reason to be grateful to him,
was particularly violent in the denunciation of his conduct.
"The little beast," I remember saying, "it is just the sort
of thing one might have expected him to go and do!"




XVII

SUMMER HOLIDAYS


At last the Summer Term came to an end. An infinity of time
seemed to have passed since that day when I first stood,
small and trembling, upon the threshold of Elmley. In
stature I had not grown appreciably larger, but spiritually
my outlook had widened. New expansions had taken place
within my little soul. The sense of Free Will which, in the
nursery, had never given me cause for thought, now seemed to
be thwarted at every turn by Predestination in the shape of
schoolmasters, school conventions and public opinion. I
discovered, however, that physical strength and superiority
in games were the most reliable assets of Free Will.
Although I had not yet mastered the technique of bluff, so
important in our dealings with our fellow human beings, I
had already managed to acquire a certain skill in hypocrisy.
I was beginning to learn how to adapt the expression of such
opinions as I held to their suitability.

During the slow-crawling weeks, home life grew more and more
remote until, at last, my only connection with it seemed to
be the chain of letters from my mother. But as the holidays
drew near, the pleasant vision appeared once more, and began
to grow in intensity. I started to number the diminishing
days with increasing excitement.

A relaxation of school discipline during the last few days
of the term seemed to effect a complete transformation in
the nature of school. For the moment Elmley became quite
bearable, almost a scholastic Utopia, in which masters and
boys were no longer bores or bullies, and the memory of the
long school hours, the tedious afternoons of cricket, and
Mr. Gambril's atrocities was for the time being obliterated.
It was strange how a mood of happy anticipation had
completely transformed the place. I had come to look upon
the dreary classrooms, the playing-fields, the very elm
trees as forming prison bars from which there was no
prospect of escape. Now everything seemed to glow in the
gentle summer haze and the immediate promise of release.

     *     *     *     *     *

The school broke up at an early hour, and by nine o'clock
nearly everybody had left. I travelled northward with two
boys whose homes lay in the same direction. Neither of them
was a particular favourite of mine. In fact one of them I
actively disliked. But here again the magic transformation
was operative. I delighted in their company on the homeward
journey. They seemed to me to be not such bad fellows after
all, and I felt that I had misjudged them. This new and
mutual affection was further cemented by an orgy of
chocolate and hard-boiled eggs.

It was delightful to find myself at home once more. Yet,
after the first rapture had subsided, I began to realise
that a serpent had crept into my paradise. The enjoyment of
home life had acquired an additional zest through absence,
just as, after travelling abroad, we return with a new
appreciation of our native land. But, alas! this enjoyment
had now a transient character, an all-too-briefness that the
very word "holidays" implied. Time, during the last months,
had beat with a slow pulsation. Now it resumed its normal
speed. School would be upon me again before very long. The
thought of it haunted me perpetually.

There were also many amusements in which, now that I had
been to school, I could no longer indulge because they might
be considered childish, and there were certain pretences
that had to be kept up for the sake of Manliness. On the
very first day of the holidays my mother struck a sinister
note by saying, "You have been invited to play in a cricket
match next week." And when I began to invent excuses, she
said with some surprise, "But you have always told me in
your letters that you were so fond of cricket!"

Happily the River God came to my rescue. I had learnt to
swim after a fashion; well enough at any rate to satisfy my
mother that I would be able to keep myself from drowning.
With my savings I bought a birch-bark canoe, and I was
allowed to spend most of my time on the water. The Dee was a
delightful river, winding and romantic, overhung in places
with rocks and trees, and complete with side-shows in the
shape of back-waters, narrows, rapids and other excitements.
My mother, seeing that I was happy in this pursuit and
feeling no doubt that boating was quite a manly occupation,
did not unduly press the cricket question. I never dared
openly to confess to her how much I disliked the game, but I
fancy that she understood. At all events she had ample
opportunity, on the one occasion during the holidays that
she saw me play cricket, to realise that I was not very good
at it.

Apart from the grim foreboding of the return to school for
ever lurking in the background, there was another terror
that haunted me day and night. Just before the end of the
term I had lost a book out of the school library. The mere
loss of an inexpensive book which could easily be replaced
would seem to be a trifling matter, but I am sure that no
criminal fleeing from justice could have gone through such
agonies of mind as I did on account of that wretched volume.
The book (I remember it only too well!) was _Michael
Strogoff_ by Jules Verne. Its title in red on a black cover
remains blazoned in letters of fire on the retina of my
memory. What made the matter infinitely worse was that I
kept my secret to myself and brooded over it in silent
misery. What is it that sometimes makes the young so chary
of confiding their distresses to grown-ups? Is it childish
pride? The fear of a possible lack of sympathy? The
probability of finding an enemy where one hoped for an ally?
I only know that my holidays were embittered by the loss of
this book. When I returned to school I found it sitting
calmly in its proper place on the shelf just as if nothing
had happened, totally oblivious of all the fear and misery
it had occasioned to one unhappy little reader.

     *     *     *     *     *

There had been, that summer, a very welcome addition to the
neighbourhood. A friend of my father's, a certain Mrs.
Harvey, had taken a house a few miles distant from Althrey.
Her arrival made quite a stir in the county. She was widely
celebrated for her beauty and her wit, and I heard her
spoken of as a "woman of fashion," which impressed me very
much. Certainly when I saw her for the first time I realised
that she was quite unlike any of our country neighbours. She
was always exquisitely dressed (I had never seen anyone so
beautifully dressed, with the possible exception of my Aunt
Flora), and, bicycling being all the rage at that time, she
even contrived to look well on a bicycle, which was a great
test. She had two daughters, Lydia and Christina; they were
about the same age as myself and they seemed to have
inherited a goodly portion of their mother's charms. Both
girls had fair hair and a delicate transparent colouring.
Their characters might well be described in terms of
porcelain. Christina was Svres, Lydia Famille Rose. Lydia's
personality was the richer of the two, less refined perhaps
in detail, but there was more ingenuity of imaginative
colouring and design. I fell passionately in love with both
of them. The Harveys were the first people of their kind I
had ever met and, just as the ladies of Rose Hill had
represented for me the world of continental travel, so did
these new friends introduce into my life a novel and
delightful aspect of the amenities of social intercourse.
Although they were fond of sport (Mrs. Harvey rode extremely
well) I was pleased to find that they never thought of
treating it as a fetish, as a touchstone of character,
neither did they seem to hold the opinion that anyone who
was not good at games must necessarily be inferior in all
respects.

I overheard one of the neighbours say that Mrs. Harvey was
very "fin de sicle." What this exactly implied I never
quite understood, but I know that she was interested in all
that was going on in the world of art and literature at the
time. She had known Walter Pater, Whistler, Wilde and
Swinburne. But of this, of course, I knew nothing in those
days, such names having never been mentioned in the family
circle. My mother's culture stopped with Tennyson.

Life in the 'nineties, in a distant provincial neighbourhood
such as ours, had seemed to me up till then a little devoid
of charm. It was a tawdry, unprepossessing period. In the
country life of the 'eighties there had been at least a
certain solid grandeur, this had now given place to
gimcrack. The Zeitgeist was represented by the bicycle. The
costume of the period (the leg-of-mutton sleeves, the straw
hats, the blouses, the masculine collars and ties worn by
the women), which when reproduced on the stage nowadays
raises a sympathetic smile, seemed to me at the time to be
of an unmitigated plainness. Interior decoration was equally
depressing. Whatever the sthetic cult may have produced in
the way of beauty elsewhere, in our neighbourhood there was
nothing but a welter of cane and bamboo furniture, draped
easels, standard lamps with flounces, mirrors with roses and
chrysanthemums painted on them, Moorish fretwork, Indian
embroidery, pampas grass and palms; an effort, no doubt, to
escape from the cumbrous smugness of the Mid-Victorian
style, but which could hardly be described as successful
from an artistic point of view.

     *     *     *     *     *

I find it difficult to speak of Mrs. Harvey, at this
distance of time, without falling into exaggeration. The
impression she made on my youthful mind is too highly
coloured and gilded with the sentimental memory of the past.
Her personality, when she first arrived like a meteor in our
midst, seemed to me so radiant, her conversation so
brilliant, that it was as though she were a being outside
the ordinary range of daily life, the materialisation of
some personage of fiction. I had heard it said that she was
like a character from one of George Meredith's novels, and
for days I struggled with _Diana of the Crossways_. But I
came to the conclusion that the somewhat recondite epigrams
of the heroine were not a patch on those of Mrs. Harvey.

My own efforts at "brilliant" conversation were not
encouraged by my mother. Once, after I had made a
particularly fatuous epigram, she said that she was afraid
the society of the Harveys was having a bad effect on me and
that I was growing pretentious. However, in spite of her
instinctive distrust of clever people, she liked and admired
Mrs. Harvey and put up with a good deal from her that she
would not have stood from persons of less distinction. When
my mother appeared one evening at a dinner-party with a
bruise on her neck and Mrs. Harvey said to her, "How
disappointing, my dear, that it should only be a hunting
accident, I had hoped you had a passionate lover," my
mother, while expressing embarrassed resentment, was
secretly rather pleased.

I used to see a great deal of Lydia and Christina. Nearly
every day I went over to their house to spend the afternoon
with them, or they would come over to Althrey and we would
bathe together or explore the river in my canoe. They were a
little scornful of the other children in the neighbourhood,
whom they considered for the most part stupid or
uninteresting. Between us we generally managed to dominate
over them and impose upon them our own particular ideas of
amusement. We had invented a variety of games both for
outdoor and indoor uses. One of them, I remember, was called
"Mad Dog." I will give a description of it, for it is a game
that might prove very useful for political hostesses.

A Mad Dog was first selected by drawing lots, and then the
rest of the party proceeded to hide in various parts of the
house or the garden. After a few minutes' grace the Mad Dog
ran amok. Anyone who was caught was formally bitten and then
there were two Mad Dogs. Thus the number of Mad Dogs went on
increasing and the sane ones diminishing, on the principle
of the ten little nigger boys, until finally (and this was
the most thrilling moment of the game) there was a howling
pack of Mad Dogs in full cry after the solitary survivor.

I often wished that Nesta were still living in our midst.
With Lydia and Christina as allies, I would at last have got
even with her. We would have stood no nonsense from her.

Another game we used to play necessitated a Medical
Dictionary, which had to be surreptitiously removed from the
library. You had to open it with your eyes shut and place
your finger at random on a page. You were then obliged to
read the passage out aloud. Many of the terms were
incomprehensible to us, but they sounded very funny and we
had a pleasant conviction of their impropriety. Owing to its
equivocal character, this game had to be concealed from our
parents and it could only be played in a restricted circle.

Soon, all too soon, the dread day arrived for my return to
Elmley. Once again my mother accompanied me to London, we
stayed once more in Belgrave Square and I was taken to a
play, just as it had happened when I first went to school.
In fact the whole process was repeated, the only difference
being that, this time, I knew exactly what was in store for
me.




XVIII

MASTERS AND BOYS


The most popular of the assistant masters at Elmley was
undoubtedly Mr. Simpson. He was primarily the Sports master,
though he taught other things as well, such as geography and
history. He was a great favourite with the boys, and he
seemed to attach a good deal of importance to his
popularity. He went out of his way to court it, and even
encouraged familiarities that might be considered unbecoming
between masters and boys.

Mr. Simpson was a short, stocky little man with a heavy
military moustache that gave him a certain resemblance to
Lord Kitchener. He was never without a pipe in his mouth,
and his face (like the faces of so many of our modern
English novelists) looked as though the pipe had been there
first and the face had grown round it afterwards.

I was not sufficiently prominent in games to aspire to be an
especial favourite of his, and this naturally prejudiced me
against him. Apart from this, I instinctively knew him to be
rather a bounder. Although my feelings of
class-consciousness, at that time, were not very highly
developed, nevertheless I suspected him of being what Emma
Woodhouse might have termed "only moderately genteel."

Then there were two clergymen, the Reverend Mr. Bevis and
the Reverend Mr. Adcock. Mr. Bevis was the master I
preferred to all the others. He was a gentle, scholarly man
of about fifty, with a delicate ascetic face. He was rather
despised by the boys as well, I fancy, as by the masters,
for he possessed two qualities that were quite out of
keeping with the general trend of the educational policy at
Elmley, a sense of humour and a sense of beauty. He even
went so far as to emphasise the literary and picturesque
side of the Greek and Latin Classics. In his hands the
_Iliad_, the _Odyssey_, the _neid_, the _Odes_ of
Horace became something other than mere exercises in syntax.
Alas! I was only in his class for a single term and the
enthusiasm he had succeeded in arousing for the Latin and
Greek authors was speedily dispelled by his successor.

Mr. Bevis cherished a secret dislike for the Headmaster, and
he would now and then indulge in mild jokes at Mr. Gambril's
expense which met with delighted sniggers from his audience,
tempered with a certain awe, for it was like watching Ajax
defying the lightning.

Despite all I have said about Mr. Gambril, I feel that I
have only succeeded in conveying but a feeble impression of
the fear this man inspired. His terrifying personality
seemed to hover over the school like some obscene vulture
over a flock of lambs. The rustling of his wings was for
ever in the air. At any moment he might pounce. He was like
the Angel of Death stalking through a plague-stricken city.
No one was immune from that dreadful summons.

With regard to the other clergyman, Mr. Adcock, the only
thing one could say about him was that he was very old and
very mad. As a teacher he was utterly useless, and I imagine
that his services had only been retained for sentimental
reasons. He had been a schoolmaster at Elmley for an
incalculable number of years. He dated back to the
prehistoric days when Mr. Gambril Senior ran the school.

I don't know whether Mr. Adcock had, in his early youth,
lived on a farm, but he certainly had an agricultural
obsession in his old age, and he was for ever using such
expressions as "putting the hand to the plough," "sowing
seeds and reaping," "calling a spade a spade," and so forth.
He used to refer to boys as "sheep" and "cows." When he was
annoyed with you he would sometimes call you a "bad cow." He
was a venerable-looking old man with a short straggling
white beard and white fluffy hair that used to glow like an
aureole when outlined against the light. Indeed he had the
air of an elderly saint. Apart from the senile decay from
which he was suffering, he was an amiable old man and
everybody liked him. He used to praise his pupils
ecstatically whenever they did anything right, and he never
lost his temper or gave one punishments like the other
masters. Towards the end of my time at Elmley he had grown
so old and incompetent that he was at last obliged to
retire. His farewell sermon was a very moving affair. He got
up into the pulpit with considerable difficulty, addressed
the congregation as "My good cows," and then burst into
tears.

Mr. Miles was the Mathematical master, and for that very
reason especially detestable to me, for whom mathematics
were anathema. He was also a prig, the type of pedantically
superior, insular prig which England, above all other
countries, manages to produce in its perfection. Nearly
every sentence that proceeded from his lips had so
exasperating a flavour that it excited a wild sense of
irritation, even when one agreed with him.

I have recently discovered his exact counterpart in an
English musical critic, whose name cannot be mentioned, as
he is unfortunately still alive. In this man's articles and
books I noticed a certain tone that reminded me forcibly of
Mr. Miles, so that I was curious to meet him to see if the
resemblance went any further. It did indeed; and I was
confronted with an almost perfect replica of the
Mathematical master at Elmley. I was taken back to those
far-off days and my memory was refreshed as effectively as
by any of the scents, tastes and tactile aids to
recollection discovered by Proust. There was the same anmic
earnestness, the same superior disparagement of things that
escaped his comprehension, the same milk-and-water voice
upon which a University twang lay like a thin layer of
vinegar. His personality, just like that of Mr. Miles,
excited all those sentiments of irritation that can only be
relieved by the application of a well-aimed kick. If it were
not for the fact that the respective dates of births and
deaths overlapped I should be inclined to believe in a
reincarnation.

The master of the Second Form, Mr. Grey, was a humorist. He
was always making little jokes and his classroom perpetually
rang with merry laughter. His jokes were not always quite on
the same level, and at times the laughter was perhaps a
little perfunctory. Some of them had the persistence of a
recurring decimal. There was a line in Horace, "celeri
saucius malus Africano." Whenever it occurred Mr. Grey would
give a wink and say, "Now, boys, don't translate that by
'Celery sauce is bad for the African.'" But he strongly
discouraged his pupils from attempting to make jokes in
their turn. If you ever tried to be funny yourself, he would
look at you severely and say, "You're a bit of a wag, aren't
you?"

Mr. Grey was a married man. When I saw his wife one day at a
cricket match, I thought that I understood the reason of his
intensive humoristic urge during school hours. Although
rather gaudily dressed and very much beribboned, she was a
severe-looking woman; she looked like a mausoleum in the
flamboyant Gothic style. I am sure that poor Mr. Grey was
forbidden to make any of his jokes at home, so that his
natural instinct could only be indulged in the classroom.
However, in spite of his unflagging facetiousness, he was
rather a nice little man and, after all, it was something to
be able to laugh in school-time, even at a bad joke.

Mr. Goddard had the distinction of being the only master
upon whom the boys ventured to play practical jokes. He was
evidently lacking in that subtle quality which enables
schoolmasters to hold small boys in awe; a quality that is
difficult to analyse. I should say its primary ingredients
were a capacity for taking oneself seriously, and the
magnetic power of the eye. A piercing glance can more
effectively quell unruliness than any amount of strong
silence. To a casual observer Mr. Goddard would have
appeared to be a perfectly normal specimen of the human
race; he had no obvious absurdities; he neither stammered
nor lisped; his appearance was plain but not ridiculous. He
was not weak and foolish like old Mr. Adcock, nor was he
nearly so ridiculous as the French master. Yet he was ragged
unmercifully. Had it not been for the ever-existent danger
of the Headmaster's sudden visits to the classrooms, he
would no doubt have suffered even more than he did. As it
was, Mr. Goddard's classroom resembled at times the
harlequinade of a Christmas pantomime. Paper butterflies
were released, sheaves of toilet paper were thrown into the
air, explosive pens were laid on his desk and, on one
occasion, his small alarum clock, which had been missing for
several days, was handed to him just as he was going into
chapel, carefully timed to go off in the middle of the
service; which it did, with great effect.

I suppose that a sense of pride must have prevented the poor
man from complaining to the Headmaster. Eventually, however
(as must inevitably happen), the state of affairs prevailing
in Mr. Goddard's classroom attained to such a degree of
publicity that he was removed from the school.

It was curious that nobody ever thought of ragging the
French and German masters, for two more ludicrous creatures
surely never existed. In their respective styles they were
the most complete caricatures of their own national
characteristics that could possibly be imagined. One might
almost have thought that they had been very carefully
selected in order to act as anti-foreign scarecrows; their
sole function being to prove to patriotic English schoolboys
the superiority of their own countrymen over their French
and German neighbours. Neither Monsieur Dupont nor Professor
Schulz seemed to be gifted with any capacity for teaching
languages. Under their tuition one merely learnt long
strings of names for which one would never be likely to have
any practical use. The only thing they did manage to do with
any success was to convey the impression that both French
and German were dead languages.

     *     *     *     *     *

At the beginning of my second term, when the school came
together for the first time in the big Assembly Room, I
noticed that the two new boys who had come that term were
not present. Remembering my own confusion and bewilderment
on the first day at school I felt sure that they had missed
the Assembly through ignorance and I began to be worried on
their behalf, reproaching myself with not having befriended
them and prevented this involuntary lapse of discipline.
However, I soon discovered that their absence was
intentional; the reason for it was disclosed in the
Headmaster's opening address.

"Boys," he said, "I have something to say to you. There are
two new-comers this term who are of a different creed to the
rest of you. One of them is a Roman Catholic, the other is a
Jew. Now, boys, you are not to allow this fact to make any
difference to your treatment of them. You must remember that
they are just boys like yourselves and it is through no
fault of their own that they have had the misfortune to be
born into families who are not Protestants and, in the case
of one of them, not even Christians. You must behave to them
with kindness and courtesy. You must forget that in bygone
days Roman Catholics used to make a practice of burning
Protestants at the stake, and that the other boy belongs to
the race that crucified Our Lord." Thus he went on, working
up our feelings against the two wretched boys and, in a
spirit of Christian charity, proceeded to rake up every
imaginable grievance that Christians might harbour against
Jews and Roman Catholics. He reminded us of a dozen
incriminating facts that undoubtedly we should never have
thought of ourselves. It was a most injudicious speech.
Nevertheless, I am sure that, although he seemed bent on
arousing our animosity, it was done quite unconsciously. It
merely happened that, having started off in an historical
vein, he was unable to resist the temptation of displaying
his erudition.

Happily for the two boys the Headmaster's word was law, and
no attempts were made to bully or taunt either of them, in
spite of the fact that the little Jewish boy Abraham
positively invited ill-treatment. He was the most repulsive
specimen of his race I have ever seen, and, just as in the
case of the French and German masters, one wondered if he
had not been sent to the school by some anti-Semite Society
as an "agent provocateur." He resembled an appalling
caricature of a Jew, with sallow face and the traditional
nose distorted out of all proportion. His skin looked as if
it were perpetually exuding grease. He had thick lips and
black curly hair of so repellent a texture that it at least
kept people from pulling it, which they might have been
otherwise tempted to do. The only redeeming feature in this
lamentable ensemble were his eyes, which were large, dark
and lustrous. He was nicknamed "The Rose of Sharon" and left
severely alone.

He was so uncannily awful that he fascinated me as a
curiosity, and I tried to make friends with him in a spirit
of ethnological research, hoping that I might perhaps be
initiated into some strange Oriental mystery. But, even as a
freak, he was disappointing. He turned out to be a very
uninteresting, materially-minded little boy. He had to be
kept in his place. If you were in the least kind to him he
immediately became overbearing and impertinent. During his
second term, when he had gained a little more
self-confidence, he began lending money to the boys in his
class, and he initiated a lottery out of which he would no
doubt have made a handsome profit had it not been discovered
and forbidden by one of the assistant masters.

On the other hand, the Roman Catholic, Desmond, was a rather
attractive little boy. He was intelligent and amusing and
there was something slightly exotic about him that made him
seem different to the other boys. I remembered the horror
that Lady Bourchier used to evince whenever she spoke about
"Papists," and this prejudiced me in his favour. Moreover,
he shared my dislike for Creeling, who, on his side,
appeared to hold the same views as did my grandmother.
Desmond did not seem to take his religion very seriously;
indeed he sometimes shocked me by the irreverence with which
he spoke of sacred matters. He used to take a malicious
pleasure in drawing Creeling out, especially on the subject
of his religious views and, having a certain dialectical
skill, generally succeeded in leading him into a quagmire of
argument where he would leave him floundering. Creeling used
to dread these attacks, as he invariably got the worst of
it; but, in the spirit of a militant Protestant, he felt it
his duty to respond.

I remember one day we got Creeling into a corner and pressed
him unmercifully on the subject of "his God," of whom he
used to speak in an aggressively possessive manner.

"Tell us about this God of yours," said Desmond. "In what
way is he different to mine? Has he got a beard?"

"No, of course not," retorted Creeling angrily. "He is an
invisible spirit."

"Really? No beard. Well then has he got toe-nails?"

"Certainly not!" Creeling was shocked. "I said he was an
invisible spirit."

"That's most interesting. And tell me, where does he live?"

"He is ubiquitous. That is to say, he lives everywhere."

"What? Not in the Headmaster's study?"

"Yes. He is everywhere."

"Surely not in the water-closet?"

"I tell you he lives everywhere." And Creeling broke away
from us in a fury.

Desmond caught him by the coat tails, calling out to
everyone within earshot, "I say, Creeling worships a funny
sort of God. No toe-nails and lives in the W.C.!"

He collected a jeering crowd round the unfortunate Creeling,
until at last an elder boy intervened and told Desmond to
shut up, adding that in any case he was a Roman Catholic and
had better not be blasphemous.




XIX

DIVERSIONS


Small boys are apt to be romantically disposed, and they
often display considerable ingenuity in extricating food for
romance from the squalid ashbin of school life.

The monotonous sequence of events was, from time to time,
enlivened with mysteries, strange rumours and tales of
horror. The whole school would be kept agog for several days
by some hidden crime. Unknown persons had been holding a
smoking party in the masters' lavatories, someone had
written an offensive word on the French master's desk,
flowers had been picked in the Headmaster's garden, sweets
had been bought at the village post-office and eaten
secretly at night in one of the dormitories. When the
culprits were successful in concealing their identity,
half-holidays would be stopped in order to induce
confession. On such occasions we felt as though an unknown
criminal was walking in our midst, and no one was immune
from suspicion. Occasionally a boy would be expelled and the
reason of his expulsion never revealed.

One thing, however, was certain. Whatever crime was
committed, however astutely the delinquents might scheme to
escape detection, Mr. Gambril would ultimately discover the
truth. No ill deed had ever succeeded in baffling his
lynx-like investigation. Indeed he seemed to be aware of
everything that went on in the school, and one suspected
that Elmley, like the Villa of the Emperor Hadrian, must
have been honeycombed with secret passages whence the
Headmaster could spy upon us and acquaint himself with all
that was being said or done in classrooms, dormitories and
offices. He was the Master Detective, Judge and Executioner
in one.

In the early 'nineties, detective stories and "thrillers"
had not attained the vogue they enjoy in 1930. Sherlock
Holmes, it is true, had already made his appearance in the
world, but he had not yet become a figure of world-wide
renown. The chronicles of his exploits were not to be found
on the shelves of the school library. Nevertheless, the
craving for the "horrid" and the gruesome was just as strong
among the schoolboys of Elmley as it had been, a century
ago, among the young ladies of Northanger Abbey, and we were
obliged, just as they were, to evolve our own "Mysteries of
Udolpho."

In one of the dormitories there was a semicircular
protuberance in the wall that could not be accounted for by
any ordinary architectural rules. Here, it was said, many
years ago, a member of the school had been walled up alive,
and sometimes in the depths of the night his ghost could be
heard moaning and tearing at the walls of his prison with
his nails.

Then there was a certain train that used to pass every
evening at eleven o'clock. It was known as the Corpse Train,
and was believed to be bearing corpses to the Crematorium at
Woking. Nobody bothered to investigate the origin of this
belief. For all I know, it may have been a perfectly
commonplace goods train, but the legend, once started,
became an article of faith, and the Corpse Train continued
to excite a morbid curiosity, especially among the smaller
boys. We used to face the fearful odds of detection and
punishment by keeping ourselves awake until we heard the
school clock strike a quarter to eleven (which, for us,
seemed to be in the depths of the night) and we would creep
out to a window in the passage from which there was a
distant view of the railway line. The position of the
window, from a strategical point of view, could not have
been more dangerous for it was quite close to the baize door
leading to the Headmaster's side of the house, through which
at any moment he might himself appear. We hid ourselves as
well as we could behind the curtains and waited breathlessly
for the passing of the Corpse Train. Then we stole back to
bed again with a thrill in our hearts at having caught a
glimpse of it flashing by with a muffled roar, bearing its
gruesome cargo into the night.

On the other side of the main road, opposite to the entrance
to the school, there was a cemetery. A good view of it could
be obtained from some of the dormitory windows on the top
floor, and the fortunate occupants of these dormitories
declared that phosphorescent forms could often be seen after
dark flitting about among the tombstones and the yews.

The covered gymnasium adjoining the swimming bath was
supposed to be haunted by a whining banshee. One evening
Arthur and I plucked up sufficient courage to do a little
psychic research. The great empty court looked ghostly
enough in the grey twilight, and as we stood there,
quivering with fear and excitement, we distinctly heard a
faint but unmistakable sound of whining. If it had occurred
to either of us that the uncanny sounds emanated from a dog
kept by one of the assistant masters in an outhouse at the
further end of the Gymnasium we would have deliberately set
aside so obvious an explanation. Having obtained the thrill
we were seeking, we were determined to enjoy it
whole-heartedly. This kind of emotional Masochism has
existed through the ages and is not confined to the very
young. If a student of folk-lore were able to live for some
months in a preparatory school disguised as a small boy, he
might be enabled to make some illuminating discoveries as to
the origin of primitive myths and the growth of primitive
religions.

There was a certain boy who used to walk in his sleep. He
was supposed to have been seen one night making his way
along the high and perilous cornice that crowned the faade
of the house. This youth, who in ordinary life was quite
dull and uninteresting, enjoyed an aura of respectful
publicity on account of his somnambulistic feats. Several
other boys, excited to emulation, boasted that they also had
been known to walk in their sleep. Not wishing to be outdone
in this respect, I determined to give positive evidence of
what others had only asserted. And so, one evening after
everybody had gone to bed, I got up and set out to make a
round of the dormitories with my eyes closed, moaning
faintly. As I had never seen anybody walking in their sleep
I can hardly imagine that the performance can have been a
very realistic one. At all events nobody seemed to be taken
in by it. Any success I may have had was one of low comedy
and, from all sides, slippers were hurled at my person. It
ended by suddenly finding myself face to face with one of
the masters who happened to be on patrol and, completely
losing my head, I fell back on the pretence that I was
making for the lavatory. The whole thing was an ignominious
failure.

The enthralment exercised over us by the supernatural had
its culmination in Merton.

Merton was a boy who came to Elmley my second term. He was a
strange-looking youth. His appearance contrasted strongly
with the rather mild association of his name. He might have
been an Arab. He was cadaverously thin, and he had a long,
hatchet-face with beetling black eyebrows that met over his
nose. His eyes were very peculiar, the eyeballs showing in
their entirety between the lids (an effect the ordinary
person can only achieve by opening his eyes very wide),
giving each eye the concentric appearance of a target.

Merton was able to hypnotise. He chose for his medium a boy
called Mansell. Mansell, I must confess, seemed to be almost
a half-wit, but between them they gave the most remarkable
performances. These sances generally took place in the
boot-room, with one of us posted in the passage outside to
guard against intrusion and the vigilance of masters.

Merton always used to open the sance by making a number of
cabalistic passes in front of Mansell's face, and after a
few minutes the medium would appear to fall into a trance.
Merton would then produce a sheet of white paper and say to
the medium, "Mansell, this paper is black." Mansell would
answer in a strange, far-off, disembodied voice, "Yes,
Merton, it is black." He would then be shown other objects
and told that they were food, domestic pets or terrifying
wild beasts, and he would display all the varied emotions
that such things would naturally excite. He would eat
blotting-paper and pronounce it delicious; he would fly in
terror before a chair in the belief that it was a tiger, or
stroke a football with the most ridiculous air of tenderness
and call it "Pussy." Whilst under hypnotic influence,
Mansell was said to be in a state of insensibility, and
Merton would invite us to stick pins into him or to pinch
him. We complied, but a little half-heartedly, for, however
bloodthirsty one's disposition, it requires a certain amount
of sangfroid to stick a pin deliberately into unresisting
human flesh.

Our sances had to be conducted with the greatest secrecy,
and this gave them an additional furtive charm, as though
they were the clandestine gatherings of some occult and
persecuted sect. Eventually, however, Merton's fame spread
beyond our own small coterie, and hypnotism became
fashionable in the school. Merton used to say that a great
many more people than one might imagine possessed hypnotic
powers, which could be developed if they only knew how. But
obviously nobody did know how, for, although a great many
attempts were made, not one of them was successful. Even
Merton himself refused to hypnotise anyone else but Mansell.
This might have aroused suspicion, but he accounted for it
by saying that, having found a perfect medium in Mansell, it
was a useless waste of hypnotic energy to divert the force
into other channels; an explanation that sounded very
technical and convincing.

One day Mansell disappeared from our midst. His departure
from the school remained cloaked in mystery. There was no
doubt that, each day, he had been growing increasingly
queer, and it was obvious that the frequent hypnotic sances
had a good deal to do with this. But whether illness,
misconduct or mental breakdown necessitated his removal we
were never able to discover. Merton, consummate mystagogue
that he was, made the most of his medium's disappearance. He
implied that he had inside information on the subject and
that the circumstances were too strange and terrible to
discuss. In the same spirit he evolved the fiction that
Mansell, although at that time far distant (perhaps even in
another world altogether), was nevertheless still under his
domination.

One Sunday afternoon I happened to be alone with Merton in
one of the classrooms. It was growing dusk, and we had been
improving the darkening hour by telling one another ghost
stories. All of a sudden, Merton stopped speaking and
gripped my arm. He stood up and called out in a loud voice,
"Mansell, are you there?" In the silence that followed I
listened intently, quite expecting to hear the well-known
voice of the medium answering out of the darkness, "Yes,
Merton, I am here."

At that moment one of the servants came into the room to
light the gas, and the spell, I suppose, was broken. I
implored Merton to call on Mansell once again, but he said
that the man's entry had disconnected the psychic current
and it would be useless. He had, no doubt, counted on the
interruption, but he had managed the business very skilfully
and I was profoundly impressed.

No other favourable occasion ever seemed to present itself,
in spite of my continually pressing Merton to oblige. So
firm, however, was my faith in Merton's occult powers that
it never occurred to me for an instant to doubt their
efficacy.

Since then I have often wondered to what extent Merton's
hypnotic gifts were genuine and whether the whole business
had not been a put-up job between himself and Mansell.
Mansell was, as I have said, almost an imbecile. He was
incredibly ingenuous. He believed everything he was told,
and appeared to accept the most fantastic information with a
sort of vacant apathy. The weakest characters are, however,
not without the ambition to cut some sort of figure, and he
must have realised that, as a medium in conjunction with
Merton, he enjoyed a celebrity in the school such as he
could never have hoped to attain on his own. But it seemed
impossible that, unless he had really been hypnotised, he
could have borne without flinching the pinches and pinpricks
that were inflicted on him.

After Mansell's departure the craze for hypnotism began to
wane. Merton himself seemed to lose interest in the subject
and he began instead to develop a passion for pirates and
corsairs. He told us that as soon as he left school he meant
to construct a submarine (on the model of the one described
in Jules Verne's _Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea_)
with which he intended to harass the French and Russian
commercial navies. As time went on, he seemed to be growing
considerably less fantastic. His very appearance began to
alter in the direction of normality. His eyebrows became
less beetling, his eyes less piercing. He began to apply
himself seriously to games and ended by growing up into a
dull, quite ordinary boy. I believe he eventually went into
the army.




XX

THE SCHOOL CONCERT


I have said that at Elmley the Arts were discouraged. The
manner in which music was taught there was one of the
methods of discouragement.

Musical instruction was in the hands of a master who was
universally referred to as "Sammy." He may have had a
surname, but I have forgotten it. Indeed, I doubt if I ever
knew it. He was a comic, rotund little man with a pasty face
and a small black moustache that looked as though a couple
of commas had been stuck symmetrically on either side of his
upper lip. His hair was black and oily, and he wore it
parted in the middle. Nature had obviously designed him for
a hairdresser and had given him the exterior of a slightly
soiled barber's block. Why he had ever thought of becoming a
music master was a profound mystery. He hardly understood
the rudiments of the art and his taste was appalling.

He hated Bach, Beethoven and Mozart--in fact all the
classics. He used to refer to them as "those boring old
boys." Chopin and Schumann he considered rather too advanced
for consideration, and it is quite probable that he had
never even heard of Wagner or Brahms. He used to make his
pupils play ridiculous, mid-Victorian drawing-room pieces,
his especial favourite being a mawkish effusion called "Les
Cloches du Monastre." (Du Maurier mentions it in _Trilby_
as being one of the most bourgeois pieces of music ever
written.) Sammy's pupils, one and all, had to undergo "Les
Cloches du Monastre." Then there was "Home, sweet home,
with variations" by Thalberg, and a series of "brilliant"
pianoforte compositions with highly suggestive titles by a
composer named Sydney Smith, who, I may say, had nothing
whatever in common with his more illustrious namesake. One
felt that these pieces must have been written in order to
enable Victorian young ladies to show off their proficiency
in the drawing-room. They always reminded me of the
illustrations I used to see in old volumes of _Punch_
representing a crinolined damsel seated at the piano with a
bewhiskered youth leaning over her, whispering sweet
nothings into her ear.

I was still passionately devoted to Chopin. I possessed
bound volumes of the mazurkas, the waltzes, the ballads and
the impromptus, but Sammy would never let me learn any of
them; he said Chopin was "morbid" and I was obliged to study
his works surreptitiously.

During the early part of my school-days there were certain
artificial paradises into which I could retreat and take
refuge from the petty annoyances of everyday life. Chopin's
music was one of them. My interest in music had been
primarily aroused by the Fantaisie Impromptu, and as no
efforts had ever been made (except by Sammy) to divert my
tastes into other channels, I followed the line of least
resistance. Chopin's music appealed to my childish
romanticism as well as to my equally childish predilection
for what looked difficult to play. I revelled in the baroque
cadenzas that glittered like the crystal chandelier in the
drawing-room at Arley, in the subtle changes of harmony that
were like the iridescent hues on the plumage of the
Himalayan pheasant. In my love for Chopin there was no doubt
a literary flavour. I knew very little of his romantic
background, of the oppressed Poland, of Georges Sand, of the
continental life of the eighteen-thirties, yet his music
aroused in me certain vague yearnings and emotions which
despite their vagueness I could recognise as being kindred
to those evoked on previous occasions by the pictures on the
screen at Arley, by the peculiar early nineteenth-century
atmosphere prevailing there, by certain passages in my books
of fairy tales and by the descriptions given me of "abroad"
by the ladies of Rose Hill; a kind of nostalgia, perhaps,
for some visionary world built up of pre-natal memories.

     *     *     *     *     *

Towards the end of the Winter Term there took place the
annual, School Concert. A platform was erected in the big
Assembly Room; the walls were decorated with paper flowers
and Japanese lanterns were hung from the rafters. Everything
was done to make the gloomy, scholastic-looking hall look as
frivolous as possible.

During the week before the concert there prevailed an
enjoyable undercurrent of excitement, even amongst those who
were not performing in the concert themselves. Parents came
down for the occasion, the day was a half-holiday, and the
supper, consisting of cakes and ices, lemonade and other
non-alcoholic drinks, was almost sumptuous. The holidays
were within sight and there was a happy breaking-up feeling
in the air.

For my first appearance on the concert platform, Sammy had
insisted upon my learning a piece called "The Lover and the
Bird." The piece was constructed out of a single theme of
nauseating sweetness accompanied at intervals by a riot of
trills and arpeggios. If it suggested anything at all, it
put one in mind of a dialogue between a sentimental old maid
and her canary. It was almost worse than "Les Cloches du
Monastre" and I hated having to play it. However, I learnt
to execute the piece with a certain amount of brio. As it
sounded very difficult, my apparent virtuosity together with
my diminutive stature created a favourable impression on the
audience and the item was one of the biggest successes of
the programme. Both my mother and my father were present,
and as I rather shyly acknowledged the applause I was glad
to think of them assisting at my triumph. I hoped that it
might perhaps reconcile them to my musical tastes. When I
joined them later, I could see that my mother's pride was
flattered, and even my father seemed pleased, if a little
supercilious. He told me that the "Lover and the Bird" had
been one of Lady Bourchier's favourite pieces in the
unregenerate days before her conversion, and that she had
recently said that if she could hear it again she would die
happy. He added that he hoped I would go and play it to her
as soon as possible.

In the interval between the concert and supper, the boys and
their parents assembled in the Lobby. My father's elegance
and his slightly swaggering manner became a source of pride
to me as soon as they were removed from the home circle,
where I found them a trifle oppressive. Even Mr. Gambril
seemed to be a little overawed, and I noticed with some
satisfaction that his bearing towards my father was almost
servile. But what thrilled me even more was the sight of my
father engaged in conversation with Longworth's mother, who
was standing with her arm round her eldest son's neck.
Hastily detaching myself from my mother I approached the
group. Mrs. Longworth made some complimentary remark and, to
my amazement and delight, Longworth Major smiled at me and
said "Well played!" just as though I had hit a boundary or
scored a goal. If Longworth had been Chopin himself this
simple tribute could scarcely have caused me a wilder joy.
The applause of the audience faded into insignificance.

In spite of the Boxhill episode and his Olympian aloofness,
which seemed to create a barrier I could never hope to
surmount, Longworth still continued to occupy the foremost
place in my hero worship. I watched his actions with the
same eager interest with which Suburbia follows the doings
of royalty. I even went so far as to envisage a situation in
which one of my parents (preferably my father) and one of
Longworth's should be simultaneously removed, and the two
that remained should marry, so that Longworth and I should
become step-brothers; he would be obliged to notice me then!
I had never ventured to open my heart to any of my
contemporaries. Indeed, whenever anyone made a disparaging
remark about the object of my secret devotion, prudence
restrained me from protesting, and I was forced to content
myself with the inner assurance that my adoration was
justified.

Coming on the top of my success at the concert, Longworth's
unexpected condescension filled my cup of happiness to
overflowing. Had I been in a less exalted frame of mind, I
might have sobered myself with the reflection that it had
been merely due to courtesy incidental to the presence of
parents and to the exceptionally convivial nature of the
occasion and that, on the morrow, when school life resumed
its normal state, I should relapse once more, as far as he
was concerned, into oblivion. But I was intoxicated by the
glamour of success and I did not allow such distressing
thoughts to enter my mind. That night I lay awake into the
small hours of the night weaving a visionary epic of a long
series of musical triumphs, interspersed with adventures in
which Longworth and I were the protagonists.

     *     *     *     *     *

On the last day of the Winter Term there took place what was
known as the General Match. It consisted of a number of
games of football in which the whole school participated.
The teams were picked by prominent members of the school and
they included boys of every form, from the highest to the
lowest.

I was just as bad at football as I was at cricket. We used
to have to play every week-day, but, in spite of constant
practice, I never seemed to make much progress. My chief
handicap (which, it must be admitted, was a serious one) lay
in my utter incompetence in the actual kicking of the ball.
I could never be sure that it would go where I wanted it to,
and sometimes I would miss it altogether. Nevertheless, by
dint of an excessive display of energy, by running about and
making a noise, I had hitherto managed to avoid any very
conspicuous disgrace. I had always played in the lowest
game, to which neither masters nor boys paid very much
attention, and I was able to keep up my devices of bluff
with impunity.

In the General Match, however, I foresaw that a still
greater ingenuity would be required in order to keep me out
of trouble, and I decided that the best thing to do would be
to pursue my usual tactics on a more discreet scale and, if
the ball happened to come my way, to dribble it along until
it could be taken from me by some player of superior skill.
The plan worked very well until just at the end of the game,
when I suddenly found myself in an isolated position with
the ball speeding inexorably towards me. My heart sank; I
foresaw an appalling calamity. Shame and exposure seemed
inevitable. A huge opponent was bearing down upon me. I shut
my eyes and gave a frantic kick, and when I opened them
again, I found, miracle of miracles, that I had scored a
goal! My Guardian Angel, at that moment, must have been
flying very low.

In the evening, when I went to say good-bye to Mr. Gambril
and to receive my journey money, he said to me, "Well, young
man, I hear you distinguished yourself on the football
field."




XXI

THE EASTER TERM


The Easter Term of my first year at Elmley was one of the
few really happy periods of my school-days. Athletic sports,
after a couple of terms devoted exclusively to cricket and
football, came as a welcome relief. It was perhaps the fault
of my upbringing as an only child that I acquired a rooted
dislike for team-work and mass discipline. The adaptation of
my little ego to the necessities of group psychology was one
of the most laborious and unprofitable tasks of my school
life. In the case of running, jumping or hurdling (known
collectively as Sports) one was more or less an individual.
If I came in last in the hundred yards race, if I fell over
a hurdle, it was my own look-out, and I was not sworn at as
when I missed a catch at cricket or a goal at football.

Apart from this, there were other reasons for enjoying this
particular Lenten Term. Mr. Gambril's ferocity seemed to
have temporarily abated. There were no floggings, canings or
other manifestations of frightfulness. Before this there had
indeed been one or two brief intervals of amiability, when
he had appeared once more as the benign Mr. Gambril I had
known that first day at luncheon, but those intervals were
all too rare, hasty snatches of sunshine that only served to
accentuate the terror and gloom of the habitual
thunder-clouds. Now, however, it looked as though the
barometer of the Headmaster's temper were set for a
protracted spell of fair weather. The causes, whatever they
may have been, of this unwonted suavity were hidden from us
in the Olympian world of adults; a success maybe of finance
or love, the Promise of Spring or perhaps merely a period of
relief from chronic constipation or whatever ailment it may
have been that habitually embittered his nature. Anyhow,
these halcyon days, while they lasted, were very delightful,
and Mr. Gambril's affability was not without its effect upon
the school in general.

But above and beyond the mellowing influences of the
Headmaster's good-humour, I had another and far more
important source of happiness. Longworth's gracious
condescension on the evening of the School Concert had not,
as I had feared, proved an isolated expression actuated by
unusual circumstances. On the first day of the Easter Term,
when I met him in the Lobby, I had hardly dared to hope for
recognition, but, as he passed, he gave me a very amiable
smile and asked me if I had enjoyed my holidays. My heart
beat with such violence that I could scarcely answer, and I
rushed out into the playground, as a dog goes off with a
bone, to gloat over my emotion in solitude. It seemed almost
impossible that a thing that I had dreamt of, that I had
longed for so passionately, could actually have come to
pass. In my brief experience of school life I had met with
so many disillusionments that I was beginning almost
automatically to expect disappointment as the inevitable
outcome of my ambitions.

Longworth sat opposite to me in chapel in the Monitors' pew.
I glanced furtively at him and again he caught my eye and
smiled. After this I lost no opportunity of placing myself,
as it were by accident, in his way. My tactics were
successful. With every meeting his cordiality increased,
until finally, at the end of the first week, there sprang up
between us a definite friendship.

It has become a little difficult in these days of intensive
sex-sophistication to write about school friendships,
particularly of one between an older and a younger boy. In
those innocent, pre-Freudian, pre-Havelock Ellis generations
how lucky were the authors of school stories! They could
write of such things quite navely, without any fear that
their readers would automatically place their tongues in
their cheeks and indulge in a knowing leer. I can only say
that if my feelings towards Longworth were of a sexual
nature I was certainly not aware of it at the time, and I
was in the ingenuous condition of Monsieur Jourdain before
he realised that what he was saying was prose. I cannot,
however, deny that my infatuation for this boy-hero of my
school-days was accompanied by all the usual symptoms
connected with sexual attraction. His image haunted my
waking thoughts and my dreams. Anything in the least way
related to him, however commonplace, however trivial, was
imbued with an almost celestial radiance. The thought of
this friendship for ever at the back of my mind was like the
possession of some glorious work of art in sordid
surroundings; at any moment I could contemplate it and
refresh myself with its beauty. It gave a zest to the
dullness of school routine, while it lent a new vitality to
the things I liked. When, in the course of our Greek
lessons, we read of the Homeric demi-gods, beings half human
and half divine, who walked among mortals but were not of
the same common clay, for me it was always Longworth who
filled the picture, and the embodiment shed a radiance over
the dreary hours of Greek construing. At other times he
appeared to me in the guise of a Henty hero, and although I
did not appreciate Henty as an author, one of his heroes in
flesh and blood was quite a different matter, just as a
sunset or a flower garden which, in pictorial
representation, would make one shudder may be, in nature, a
thing of beauty and delight.

But of what Longworth was really like I have no longer the
vaguest idea. I imagine he must have been a very ordinary
sort of boy, and certainly devoid of any conspicuous
intellectual qualifications. I only remember that he was
very good-looking, and that he excelled in all the things
that make for prominence in school life. He happened to
satisfy a youthful craving for some object of romantic
devotion and, up till then, in the environment of my home
there had been no such inspiring figure.

On the other hand, it is more difficult to understand what
attraction I could possibly have had for Longworth, and what
it can have been that induced him to single me out for his
favour after having, for so long a period, ignored me. I can
only suppose that my appearance on the concert platform must
have invested me, for a moment, with a certain glamour and
opened his eyes to a form of publicity in which he himself
could never expect to excel. (In my own experience I have
often felt a favourable reaction towards people to whom I
would not naturally be drawn, when I have seen them
exhibiting with conspicuous success some talent particularly
alien to my own.) This may perhaps have established a sort
of telepathic contact through which the sentiments I had so
long and so ardently cherished for him were enabled to make
themselves felt.

At Elmley friendships between older and younger boys were
unusual. Age distinctions were as rigidly observed as class
distinctions in pre-war Vienna, and Longworth's lapse in
this respect elicited a good deal of comment. Among my own
contemporaries I could see that this new intimacy gave rise
to considerable irritation, and I am afraid that I took a
certain pleasure in parading it. The backing of an
influential protector made me perhaps even a little
overbearing in my relations with boys of my own standing. At
that time I had still a great deal to learn about tact, and
also, alas! about human nature. The immediate pleasure the
friendship afforded me tended to obscure the fact that there
was in its essence something precarious, something akin to
that "putting your trust in princes" against which the
Scriptures so wisely warn us. The hierarchical barrier
between an older and a younger boy, temporarily displaced,
may at any moment be re-established, just as a royal
personage, after a moment of condescension, may unexpectedly
relapse into the first person plural, the Royal "We," and
assume once more the divinity that doth hedge a king; an
experience I was presently to undergo in all its bitterness.
In my first enjoyment of what I imagined to be a real
friendship I navely imagined that such relationships could
not be broken off except under the most catastrophic
circumstances.

I knew quite well that Longworth was leaving the school at
the end of the next term. But time at school was measured by
different standards to those of ordinary life, and the end
of the coming Summer Term seemed infinitely remote.

     *     *     *     *     *

Each term had as its climax some particular form of
entertainment. In the Summer Term there was the expedition
to Boxhill, in the Winter Term the School Concert, and the
Easter Term was enlivened by an entertainment that was known
as a "Penny Reading." I never understood the inner meaning
of the name given to this _divertissement_, which was of a
semi-theatrical character. But it seemed to serve its
purpose in obviating any implication of undue frivolity,
while the association of economy and literature vaguely
suggested edification.

This year the Penny Reading was to consist of a lecture on
Science with lantern slides, a number of recitations and
three excerpts from Shakespeare--the balcony scene from
_Romeo and Juliet_ in which the Headmaster's daughter was
to play the part of Juliet with Longworth as Romeo, the play
scene from _Hamlet_ and the episode of Pyramus and Thisbe
from the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The latter excerpt was
destined for the smaller boys and I was allotted the rle of
Pyramus.

It was my first practical experience of Shakespeare. I had
been made to learn by heart some of the more famous
passages, such as Hamlet's soliloquy, Anthony's speech in
_Julius Csar_, the description of Cleopatra's barge. I had
been encouraged to look upon Shakespeare as a tragic, or at
any rate a serious dramatist, and the plays labelled
Comedies did not seem at all to correspond to my idea of
comedy. In the early stages of rehearsal the company of
small boys was left more or less to its own devices. The
scene of Pyramus and Thisbe, coming as it did in the midst
of a rather serious entertainment and detached from its
context, awoke no suspicion that it was meant to be comic.
It is true we thought the punctuation of the Prologue a
little odd, but we presumed it was a peculiarity of the
Shakespearian method. One or two lines, notably those
relating to Pyramus "seeing" Thisbe's voice and "hearing"
her face, appeared strange, but this again we put down to
the phraseology of the epoch, as also the rather
unflattering comments of Theseus and his friends. We could
not bring ourselves to believe that a scene containing a
double suicide could be anything but tragic.

The dress rehearsal was superintended by the Mathematical
master, Mr. Miles. I am not sure if he realised that we had
failed to grasp the true character of the piece, but I fancy
that, if he had, he would have lost no time in setting us
right, for he was not the kind of man who would have allowed
anyone to continue in error for very long. At all events he
professed himself quite satisfied with the way in which we
acted our parts.

And so, when the actual performance took place, we were
amazed and horrified at the spirit in which our efforts were
received. Only then did it dawn upon us that the play we
were enacting was intentionally comic. However, it was too
late to change our methods, and our gravity, rendered still
more ridiculous by embarrassment, added considerably to the
hilarity of the entertainment. Our acting, at any rate, was
not marred by the exaggeratedly intentional effects one is
so often obliged to witness in the treatment of bygone
humour on the stage, where the actors seem over-anxious lest
their audience should fail to realise that their performance
is meant to be humorous.

Of course none of us dared to confess that we had entirely
misunderstood the character of the play we had taken part
in, although one of the members of the caste was heard to
say that he had not known before that Shakespeare was ever
funny.




XXII

ON THE ROOF


The following Summer Term (the beginning of my second year
at Elmley) I was promoted to a dormitory situated at the end
of the western wing. My bed was next to a window that looked
out over some corn-fields, and a narrow lane which passed
just below the house. The landscape had all the elegant
rusticity of a picture by Morland or Birket Foster. Not a
single note of modernity disturbed the view. The lane ran
deep between mossy banks, the straggling hedges were broken
at intervals by clumps of elder and hawthorn, and here and
there, in receding perspective, rose the nodding green
ostrich-feather plumes of an elm tree. Nothing ever came
down the lane save an occasional farm cart with its heavy
plodding horse and slow clattering.

For a few days at the beginning of the term a slight illness
sent me early to bed, and, sitting comfortably propped up
against my bolster, I could watch the sky growing a deeper
purple and the lights of the small town far away on the
horizon appearing one after the other until it looked as
though a cluster of twinkling stars had fallen to earth. In
the morning, what with the bustle, hurry and all the
disagreeableness of getting up, there was not much time to
meditate on the beauties of nature; but, in the evening, the
placid enchantment of the scene in contrast with the basic
unpleasantness of school life used to make my heart ache
with a yearning after some mysterious, unknown ideal, that
most intoxicating form of _Sehnsucht_, the yearning of
William Blake's little figure stretching out its ladder to
the moon.

     *     *     *     *     *

If only one didn't have to play cricket: or at any rate not
every day and all day! It was becoming more and more obvious
that I had no talent whatever for the game. I did my best,
but I found it difficult to persevere. Cricket bored me to
death. Had I been really convinced by the Elmley propaganda
and believed that, on the day when the vogue of cricket
began to wane, the doom of the British Empire would be
sealed, it is possible that the budding patriotism in my
little soul might have spurred me on to further efforts.

But, apart from the fact that I was not a born cricketer, I
had another very cogent reason for disliking the game. It
was instrumental in separating me from Longworth. During the
Easter Term, when Athletic Sports were the order of the day,
boys of different ages mingled together more freely, and
older boys would often take an interest in the athletic
activities of the younger ones. "Athletics" was the only
form of sport at which I was any good: Longworth spent a
good deal of time coaching me, and it was largely due to his
tuition that I managed to win several prizes for running,
jumping and hurdling. In the cricket term, on the contrary,
the distinctions of age and skill were accentuated. Boys
playing on the same cricket-fields clung together and formed
cliques. The only time I was able to see anything of
Longworth was on Sundays, and during the short intervals
between the school hours on week-days. Disregarding the
official segregation, he made one or two attempts to teach
me how to bowl and bat; they were not very successful and
after a while he gave it up in despair. I could not help
feeling that a severe strain had been put upon our
friendship and, once or twice, I fancied I detected
indications that the relationship between us was not quite
as it had been. But I had not yet learnt the technique of
manipulating a difficult situation and, when incidents arose
that ought to have been a warning to me, I was as unskilful
in dealing with them as, in cricket, I was clumsy in
catching the ball or in wielding my bat.

     *     *     *     *     *

In the course of the Summer Term, Longworth and some of his
friends had formed the nefarious habit of going up on to the
roof at night to smoke; an evil practice savouring of the
worst excesses of "St. Winifred's." On account of their
extreme daring these proceedings were naturally kept very
secret. The school in general knew nothing of these midnight
orgies, and I only knew because Longworth had told me under
the strictest pledge of silence.

I used to lie awake at night in a state of feverish
excitement, thinking of what was going on overhead while the
school lay sleeping in blissful unconsciousness. It was as
thrilling as being privy to the operations of a criminal
gang. At moments I almost hoped that they might be found out
so that, in the tremendous scandal that would ensue, I
should be able to boast that I had known about it all along.
Then the thought of Longworth being expelled would cause me
almost simultaneously to offer up a prayer for their
welfare.

One evening Longworth suggested that I should, that night,
go up alone with him on the roof. I was flattered and
delighted by the invitation, but at the same time I was
terrified at the idea of such audacity. I would have given
anything in the world to refuse; yet, after the failure of
his efforts to turn me into a cricketer, I felt that it
might be fatal to say No. It was possible that he was
setting a trap to test my courage.

And so, as soon as silence reigned in the house, I crept out
of my dormitory and met him on the top landing near the
ladder which led out on to the roof. There was a full moon
that night. This made the expedition even more alarming, and
the moon kept peeping out from behind the clouds like a
malevolent watchman.

We crouched in the shadow of a chimney. Longworth produced a
packet of cigarettes. I had never smoked before, although I
pretended to him that I had. I was afraid at first that I
might not be able to get the thing to light and several
matches were wasted before I was successful. It was also the
first time that I had ever been on the roof. The view of the
familiar corn-fields seen under the shifting light of the
moon was entrancingly beautiful. My confidence was somewhat
restored and I began to puff vigorously at my cigarette
while we conversed in husky whispers. I was very happy. The
comradeship of adventure seemed to have restored the sense
of intimacy lost through cricket, and the fact that
Longworth had asked me to accompany him on this perilous
expedition seemed to me to be a proof of the constancy of
his devotion. I wished that this _tte--tte_ on the tiles
could have been prolonged indefinitely. But, alas! the
Faustian lapse ("Verweile doch du bist so schn!"), the
desire to eternalise a moment of happiness, brought me
ill-luck. After a while a breeze got up and it grew very
cold. My nightgown flapped in the wind and my teeth began to
chatter. I looked at my companion hoping that he would
suggest going down. He seemed, however, quite undisturbed by
the change of temperature and lay back against the roof with
his eyes closed. The light of the moon fell full on his face
and made it glow like alabaster against the shadowy
background. Never before in my life had I seen such
disturbing beauty in a human face. For a moment I forgot my
acute discomfort and stared at him in wonder. He had perhaps
some telepathic inkling of the wave of awe-struck admiration
that swept over me, for he suddenly threw his arm round my
neck and drew me closer to him. Then a dreadful thing
occurred. Almost before I knew what was happening I was
violently sick. Longworth sprang to his feet. "Shut up, you
little fool!" he hissed at me. But it was all very well to
say "Shut up!" I was beyond all possibility of shutting up.
He snatched the half-smoked cigarette from my fingers while
I lay gasping and retching at his feet. The noise I made was
appalling and could not for one moment have been mistaken
for the cry of a night-bird or any of the usual nocturnal
sounds. But I felt so wretchedly ill and miserable that even
the appearance of Mr. Gambril himself would have left me
unmoved.

At last I recovered a little and was able to stagger to my
feet. I made for the skylight with faltering steps and
managed to get down the ladder. Longworth followed me. As we
parted to return to our respective dormitories he gave me a
look in which fury was mingled with contempt.




XXIII

THE BIBLE-THROWING EPISODE


The Bible, during my early years, failed to inspire me with
the proper sentiments of reverence and affection. Indeed, I
regret to say I even felt an active antipathy for the Holy
Book, an attitude which was largely, if not entirely, the
fault of my grandmother, Lady Bourchier.

The Bible occupied so prominent a position in her scheme of
life that I grew to associate it with her own austere
personality and the grim little study at Stackwell. I feared
that, were I to allow it to become an obsession (as it had
become in her case) my own character might end by assuming
that same forbidding Calvinistic tinge. I was not
sufficiently cultured to be able to appreciate the beauties
of biblical language, and the numerous copies of the Bible
that my grandmother had thrust into my reluctant hands had
been, all of them, cheap, ill-bound editions. The ugly,
common bindings, the villainous print and the double columns
were not calculated to arouse sthetic interest, while the
rigid numbering of the verses seemed to impart an
unpleasantly didactic tone to the contents. Having been told
that the book had been written by God himself, I often
wondered why One who had shown himself, in most respects,
lavish to the point of extravagance should have been so
economical in the presentation of his literary efforts to
the public.

At Elmley the Bible revenged itself upon me for my lack of
consideration by becoming a positive nuisance. There were
readings from the Scriptures every morning before early
school, and on Sunday mornings we had to learn texts by
heart and recite them in turn to the Headmaster. The Bible
was thus an essential item of our morning toilet, and just
as important as a collar or a tie.

Nearly every morning the wretched volume contrived to get
itself lost. It would either burrow down to the bottom of my
locker and hide itself under the five-gloves or the cricket
bat, or else it would assume protective colouring and look
exactly like a Latin grammar or a geography book. At other
times it would wedge itself firmly between the back of the
locker and the wall so that it could only be retrieved with
the greatest difficulty. It seemed to be possessed of a
definite animal malevolence and many times it made me late
for school so that I got bad marks or an unjustified rebuke
for slothfulness.

On Sundays, "early school" was always taken by Mr. Gambril
himself. One Sunday morning towards the end of the Summer
Term, whilst we were all assembled awaiting his arrival, I
entered into a theological discussion with the sanctimonious
Creeling, in the course of which he asserted that anyone
speaking irreverently of the Bible or maltreating it in any
way would inevitably be punished by God.

"What form," I asked, "do you suppose the punishment would
take?"

"Well, you'd probably be struck by lightning, or else lose
all your money."

"What absolute rot!"

"Well, at any rate," Creeling demurred, "it would bring
frightful bad luck."

"Supposing," I suggested, "I were to get up now and throw my
Bible across the room?"

"Just you try it and see!"

He was reckoning on my cowardice, a kind of assumption that
arouses the meanest spirit. I at once stood up and hurled my
Bible across the room.

At that very moment the door opened and Mr. Gambril
appeared. The book missed him by a few inches and fell with
a thud at his feet. I was paralysed with horror, and he was
obliged to ask twice over "Who threw that book?" before I
was able to get my voice into working order.

"Oh, it was you," he said, in that ominously suave voice
which one knew from experience was like the lull preceding
the storm. He bent down and examined the book. Then the
storm broke.

"The Bible!" he shouted. "The Bible, sir! You have thrown
the Bible--and on Sunday too! Stand up on the form!"

I climbed up on to the form. My knees were trembling with
such violence that I had difficulty in keeping my balance.
Somebody laughed.

"Silence!" said Mr. Gambril. "This is no laughing matter!

"Now, sir," he turned to me, "may I ask for what reason you
threw your Bible?"

I hesitated. I could think of no valid reason.

"What did you throw your Bible for? Answer me at once!"

"I threw it for a bet."

As the words left my lips I realised their infelicity. I
suppose "bravado" was the word I had meant to use, but panic
confused my thought.

"For a bet? Indeed! This makes your offence even worse than
I had imagined. You have the effrontery to tell me, sir,
that, for a bet, which is in itself reprehensible, you
actually threw God's Sacred Book across the room! Are you
aware that this constitutes an act of sacrilege, liable in
ordinary circumstances to be punished by a long term of
imprisonment?"

I was not aware; but it seemed, at that moment, to be quite
probable. I was too frightened to recognise it as merely one
of those over-statements with which the Head was wont to
emphasise his speech.

He turned to the assembled school.

"Never," he proclaimed, "in all my long experience of school
life have I come across so flagrant a case of wilful
blasphemy and godlessness. Boys, I am sure you are all
disgusted. You will now express your condemnation of such
behaviour by hissing the culprit."

This was an entirely new form of punishment. To me, as I
stood on the form with bowed head, surrounded, as it were,
by a roomful of infuriated vipers, it seemed to be the most
terrible thing that had ever happened to anyone, and the
suggestion of mass-hatred in a peculiarly venomous shape
intensified my sense of guilt. I felt as though I were
branded for ever with the mark of Cain.

When the hissing had died down the Headmaster said to me in
the tones of a judge delivering a death-sentence, "You will
remain standing on the form during the lesson and afterwards
you will come to my study."

This, of course, implied that a birching was in store for
me. How I got through the remainder of the lesson would be
too painful to relate. There were moments when I would have
welcomed annihilation. The horror of seeing what I believed
to be a comparatively innocent action transformed in the
twinkling of an eye into an appalling crime, followed by
public shame, the experience of the pillory and finally the
condemned cell. I was also smarting under a sense of
injustice, complicated by the horrible doubt as to whether
perhaps after all Creeling had not been right in saying that
the Bible possessed magic powers of self-protection. In this
case, at any rate, the insult offered to it had been
followed by swift retribution.

The lesson came to an end at last. I got down from the form
and followed the Headmaster out of the room in the midst of
a silence that I knew to be fraught with a gloating
expectancy.

As I entered the study, Mr. Gambril took up one of his
birches and laid it on the table. He then proceeded to
deliver a forcible homily on sacrilege and wickedness in
general, in the course of which he expressed grave
misgivings about my future career. But although he fingered
the birch and, from time to time, shook it at me menacingly,
he finally dismissed me without having used it. The
implication was that my offence had been far too serious for
mere corporal punishment and that I was lucky to have
escaped expulsion. I only thought that I was lucky to have
escaped the birch.

It may perhaps seem difficult to believe that so trivial a
misdeed as throwing a Bible could have provoked all this
fury. But schoolmasters, like many other people in
responsible positions, are often overcome by the tedium of
their duties, and at such moments, I imagine, they gladly
welcome any excuse for working up a violent emotion. It
relieves their feelings and acts as a moral pick-me-up. Thus
it sometimes happens that small boys, to whom the psychology
of their elders is a sealed book, are left with a confusing
idea of the relative magnitude of their crimes.

On returning to the schoolroom, I was relieved to find that
my act of sacrilege had not really damaged me very seriously
in the eyes of my schoolfellows. The hissing was, of course,
a perfunctory affair, entered into with zest because the act
of hissing was in itself rather enjoyable. Furthermore, it
had been a "command performance" and not in the least a
genuine manifestation of public opinion. As a matter of
fact, in school life, spectacular disgrace generally
produces a reaction of popularity, and I was at once
surrounded by an interested crowd. There was, I am bound to
say, some slight disappointment when it transpired that I
had escaped a birching. However, the sense of being, for the
moment, in the public eye helped to dissipate the cloud of
guilt that hung over me, and my spirits rose again. Indeed I
felt myself almost a hero. My thoughts turned to Longworth.
I hoped that my act of audacity might perhaps tend to
counteract the lamentable impression left by the incident on
the roof. But I could find him nowhere.

The bell tolled for morning chapel. I knew that I should see
him there, for his place was directly opposite mine on the
other side of the aisle. We had been in the habit, ever
since the beginning of our friendship, of enlivening the
service by exchanging signs and grimaces, flicking pellets
of paper at one another, and seeing how far we could go
without attracting the attention of the masters. But now I
noticed, with growing concern, that Longworth was
deliberately trying to avoid looking in my direction. I was
bewildered by his behaviour and I found it impossible to
believe that the Bible-throwing business could have anything
to do with it. Hitherto he had never betrayed any symptoms
of excessive piety.

As we left the chapel I at last managed to catch his eye,
but, to my horror, I was met by so chilling a stare that it
gave me the sensation of a door being slammed in my face. If
I had only had more self-assurance and less amour-propre, I
should have accosted him then and there and asked for an
explanation. But amour-propre, alas! is for ever getting in
the way and complicating human relationships. In the
interval between chapel and the luncheon hour I came face to
face with him in the Lobby. I was not going to risk the
humiliation of a public rebuff, and so I deliberately cut
him.

It was a decision taken in a lost cause, and, as it often
happens in such cases, I was haunted for a long time
afterwards by vain regrets. I would re-enact again and again
in my memory the circumstances of this fateful meeting,
wondering whether, if I had made a last frantic effort at
reconciliation, it might perhaps have altered matters. But,
at the moment when it occurred, it seemed as though fatality
lay heavy on me. It was useless to struggle against it and
the only thing left for me to do was to eclipse myself as
gracefully as possible. I made no attempt to approach
Longworth through an intermediary. There was nobody I felt I
could trust to act in this capacity, nor did I wish it to be
known that I "minded." The position of one who has been
dropped is humiliating, and it was particularly so in this
case. The friendship with Longworth, and my own rather
injudicious attitude in the matter, had not endeared me to
some of my contemporaries, who did not hesitate to parade
the malicious pleasure my fall from favour afforded them. It
was impossible to disguise the fact that it was Longworth
who had decided the rupture of our relations; had it been a
case of friendship between equals I might perhaps have
pretended that it was I who had taken the initiative, or,
had I been more sophisticated, I might even have invented an
incident which called for a display of outraged virtue.

I heard, later on, the reasons that Longworth gave for
having broken with me. He said that he at last realised that
it didn't do for a fellow in his position to be intimate
with a mere kid, that I had shown a tendency to presume on
his friendship and that I had been getting too "cheeky." He
said that the Bible-throwing business had given him a good
excuse to put an end to the affair.

It had been obvious to me from the beginning that the
Bible-throwing had been a mere pretext. I was continually
haunted by the thought that if only I had been less obtuse,
if I had realised more fully how precarious my relations
with Longworth had been growing during the last few weeks,
perhaps this disastrous climax might have been averted. I
reviewed in my memory each single event that had taken place
during the previous months, pondering with self-torturing
intensity upon each word or action that might have hastened
the friendship to its end, leading up to the culminating
episode on the roof which had given it its death-blow. My
reflections inevitably ended in the sorrowful conclusion
that I had lost Longworth through some inherent defect in my
character, a defect that it might be impossible to remedy
and one which, throughout my whole career, would stand, like
the Angel with the flaming sword, in front of every paradise
I sought to enter. I called to mind all the humiliations I
had suffered during my short life, all the people who had
disliked or despised me--Nesta, Cousin Emily, Mademoiselle
Bock--and they seemed to circle above me in the dusky air
like the Eumenides, pointing at me fingers of scorn.

The remainder of the Summer Term was utter misery.
Longworth's friendship had been the one bright flame that
lit up my dreary existence at Elmley and had made school
life glow with a pleasant radiance. I fell into a state of
deep depression. Even Mrs. Gambril noticed that something
was amiss. She sent for me and inquired if I had any secret
trouble. She asked me if I were being bullied. This I
indignantly denied. That was, in any case, a thing that one
would never admit. She plied me with questions and finally,
in desperation, ordered me a tonic, to be taken daily after
meals. Its bitter taste was a daily complement to the
bitterness of my heart. I wished that it could have been the
waters of Lethe. Each day there was the recurrent agony
(like a vulture tearing at my liver) of being obliged, in
chapel, to sit opposite the cause of all my misery and to
meet with never a flicker of recognition on that once so
friendly face. Now, whenever his eyes chanced to meet mine,
I encountered the cold, inhuman gaze of an archaic statue.




XXIV

DISSOLVING VIEW


A few days before the end of the Summer Term I heard that my
grandfather Mr. Farmer was dead. When I came home for the
holidays I found that my mother had gone to Arley. Neither I
nor any of my small cousins had been summoned to the
funeral, it being considered wiser, I suppose, to spare us
the depressing ceremony.

This was the first time, within my experience, that anyone
with whom I was nearly connected had died. But Mr. Farmer's
death had taken place at a distance and the only emotion
that I can remember feeling was one of slight annoyance at
not having been invited to the funeral. For the first time,
also, I found myself alone at home without a parent or a
governess to control my actions, and, in the enjoyment of
this novel experience, I remember thinking how pleasant it
would be to have no parents, to be one's own master, free to
do just whatever one liked. After letting my thoughts revel
for a while in an orgy of imagined liberty, I suddenly
recollected how devoted I was in reality to my mother. I was
seized with remorse, and discovering a new form of self-pity
in the idea of being an orphan, I burst into floods of
tears. One of the servants, through an excusable
misunderstanding, sought to console me with the information
that "Grandpapa had gone to heaven and was now among the
angels." As I had only known "Grandpapa" while he was
afflicted by his strange mental derangement, this conjured
up a rather ludicrous picture, and I wondered what the
angels would think of some of the curious language he used
during his more violent outbursts.

     *     *     *     *     *

My grandfather's death left an unsettled state of affairs at
Arley, and so we did not go there as we usually did during
the summer holidays. For some time afterwards, in this
devoted family circle, so closely held together by ties of
loyalty and affection, the air was full of the jealousies
and recriminations that so frequently follow on the reading
of a will. During the visits of various relatives to Althrey
during the summer months I was continually overhearing
comments on the injustices the will contained, so that I
eventually came to believe that it must have been a monument
of posthumous malice.

With regard to Arley itself it was finally decided that my
grandmother should stay on there, together with Aunt Flora
and Uncle Luke. My mother's eldest brother, who should by
rights have taken up his residence at Arley, having
apparently a deep-rooted aversion to the Gothic style,
preferred to remain in the Georgian house in which he had
been living up till then.

I was very relieved to think that there was to be no
alteration in the conditions at Arley. The picture of Arley
as it had appeared to me in my early youth was one that
neither time nor circumstances had succeeded in
obliterating, and although school life had transformed my
outlook to a considerable extent and had now become more
important to me, a more serious affair than home life,
nevertheless, the peculiar atmosphere of Arley, which I have
attempted to convey in the opening chapters, remained the
foundation upon which the fabric of my later impressions
rested.

I looked forward to my next visit to Arley (which was to
take place at Christmas) with an anticipation intensified by
a longer absence than usual.

     *     *     *     *     *

Once more, after I had crossed the river and got within
sight of the grey towers looming through the trees in the
twilight, I was seized with that same ecstasy of
anticipation I had always experienced as a small child. I
even felt that, with my grandfather gone, the place might
assume a gayer and still more lovable aspect.

But as soon as I set foot inside the house I began to
realise that a curious transformation had taken place. At
first I attributed it to the natural aftermath of sadness
consequent on my grandfather's death, a cloud of melancholy
not yet dissipated by time. There was, without doubt, a
subtle alteration in the atmosphere, indefinable in its
quality, but which none the less seemed to have affected
even the material aspect of things, just as scenery on the
stage is transformed by a change in the lighting.

During the last years of my grandfather's life, my
grandmother had come to rely more and more for the
management of the household upon my Cousin Emily, who had
taken up her residence permanently at Arley and had been
given a small suite of rooms in one of the towers. But it
had always been found necessary to keep her out of my
grandfather's sight as much as possible, for he detested
her, and her mere appearance was sufficient to provoke one
of his fits of violent, incoherent rage.

Latterly Mr. Farmer had grown quite incapable of taking any
part in domestic affairs, of giving an order even;
nevertheless, so long as he remained alive, the patriarchal
spirit continued to prevail. He was still the nominal head
of the house; his authority remained in theory the ultimate
appeal; the primeval leadership of the "Old Man" was still
an important convention. Emily therefore played the part of
an unobtrusive housekeeper and remained in the background.

At the age of thirty, Emily had developed into a prematurely
aged, wizened little creature. Her beady eyes had just a
little more expression than those of a frog and slightly
less than those of a parrot. Her pursed-up mouth gave her a
tightly shut appearance, as though she were bolted and
barred against all external influences, and her
closely-buttoned-up tailor-made costumes seemed an
appropriate sartorial accompaniment to her features. She
affected a type of headgear known as the "pork-pie" hat.
When she went out she invariably carried a bulging,
Robeyesque umbrella, no matter how fine the weather. This
implement I came to regard as Emily's own special symbol,
just as the chimonanthus shrub stood in my imagination for
Aunt Flora. In Emily's hands the umbrella seemed a natural
weapon of defence against all the things in life that were
in the least removed from the commonplace.

When I was a small child, Emily had, from time to time,
endeavoured to adopt repressive measures; she occasionally
"sneaked" about me to my grandmother and managed to get some
of my simple but slightly subversive amusements forbidden;
but, as I grew up, her interference became less effective
and finally she relapsed into a malevolent quiescence.

Since she was my grandmother's protge, the attitude of the
rest of the family towards her (with the exception of my
cousins and myself) was one of indulgent toleration. Mrs.
Farmer used to say that she found her invaluable, but it
is difficult to imagine that anyone so obviously averse to
constructive effort could possibly have coped with the
complicated domestic arrangements at Arley. It was always
presumed that the clock-work efficiency with which the house
was run was in reality due to the capable management of the
housekeeper, Mrs. Matchett. However, Emily succeeded in
making my grandmother believe that she did it all herself,
and my grandmother's compassionate nature prompted her to
take the most favourable view of anyone she protected.

As soon as my grandfather had disappeared from the scene,
Emily began to exercise an uncanny dominion over the
household. My grandmother, Uncle Luke and Aunt Flora were
none of them very vital characters, and they were unable to
hold out for long against Emily's system of negative
attrition. By methods of subtle insinuation she managed by
degrees to discourage their few modest ambitions until
finally she contrived to reduce them to a condition of
inertia similar to her own.

Her increasing domination over Arley and its inhabitants was
like some strange, insidious mildew which ended by pervading
every cranny and corner of the place. She seemed to have
woven a spell that held it in a lethargic thrall, and before
long it became overgrown with weeds and brambles of a more
deadly kind than those that infested the palace of the
Sleeping Beauty. The very rooms began to change their
characters. The library lost its air of luxurious comfort;
the reading lamps burnt less brightly in their emerald
shades; the busts of the Eminent Men of Letters scowled from
their niches in evident disapproval, and the porphyry urns
on the mantelpiece began to assume a funereal aspect. In the
blue-and-gold drawing-room some of the most agreeable
landmarks began to disappear, the Himalayan Pheasant and the
scrapwork screen. Even Aunt Flora's sitting-room had
suffered a change. I noticed that the dome-shaped cage with
its twittering birds was no longer there. "Emily says that
they are unhealthy," Aunt Flora explained. "Perhaps she is
right." And she smiled rather sadly. One began to wonder
whether Emily did not possess hypnotic powers, for in normal
circumstances Aunt Flora would never have allowed herself to
be deprived of her birds. Now, however, she seemed quite
resigned.

The most drastic change of all had taken place in the
housekeeper's room. It was a change that I felt more acutely
perhaps than any other. Mrs. Matchett had gone. Whether she
had been sent away, or whether she left of her own free
will, I was unable to discover. It is probable that she felt
disinclined to face the effects of Emily's growing
despotism. Her place had been filled by a meek-faced woman
with whom, out of loyalty to her predecessor, I never
attempted to make friends.

In dealing with her different victims Emily varied her
methods. She had managed to impress my grandmother with the
idea that she was very old. It became an obsession, and the
poor lady now spent the greater part of the day resting.
Uncle Luke, who always had a tendency to hypochondria, was
induced to believe that almost any form of activity was bad
for him. Aunt Flora, who was a genuine invalid, was
encouraged to think that, if she were to renounce certain of
the pleasures of her already sufficiently limited existence,
she might possibly get better. And so the birds had been
banished from her sitting-room under the pretext that their
continual twittering was injurious to the nerves and that
the cage was insanitary. The number of the flowers in the
room was diminished; it was supposed that they poisoned the
air. As poor Aunt Flora had few interests beyond her flowers
and her birds, she ended by passing most of her time in
aimless meditation on the sofa. I imagine that she was still
interested in clothes, but now that I had grown older she no
longer took me into her confidence.

At the time the first symptoms of this baleful
transformation at Arley began to appear, my analytical
powers were not sufficiently developed to enable me to trace
them to their true origin. I could not, of course, help
noticing the mysterious decay that seemed to be undermining
the place; but some time elapsed before I came to connect it
definitely with Cousin Emily. On the surface she seemed to
be as unimportant as ever, and, as far as visitors were
concerned, she still kept very much in the background. The
only thing that I noticed during the first visit after my
grandfather's death was that she seemed to be a little less
obsequious in her manner towards my mother, in whose person
she probably scented danger. My mother's energy and active
disposition might have stirred the spellbound inhabitants of
Arley to some form of activity which would have shaken
Emily's regime of stagnation. Towards myself Emily's
attitude was, as it had ever been, one of controlled
aversion.

My mother's contempt for Emily was so profound that, with
her tendency to disregard all facts that did not fit in with
preconceived theories, she could not at first bring herself
to admit that anyone she held in such low esteem could
possibly play a decisive rle in the life of a family of
which she herself formed part, and, even if she had any
suspicion of the true state of affairs during that winter
visit, she still considered me too much of a child to be
taken into her confidence with regard to the doings of
grown-up members of the family. She even went so far as to
defend Emily (whom she disliked as much as I did), when I
once began to unburden my heart on the subject. "You must
remember," she said, "that Emily is an orphan and that she
is your cousin."

Albeit, the "orphan cousin" eventually succeeded in
practically excluding my mother and myself from the place
which held such happy associations for both of us; not
indeed by direct methods, but by so transforming the
atmosphere of Arley that it became no longer a pleasure to
go there.

Beyond an occasional malicious insinuation, there was
nothing in Emily's demeanour to which one could possibly
take exception, and it remained just as difficult as ever to
believe that so colourless an individual could exert an
influence over anyone or anything. But in the end one was
forced to the conclusion that, beneath that faade of
physical and mental sterility, there lay hidden a will of
iron. Her very lack of character she seemed to employ as a
weapon. It was impossible to reason with her. There was no
use in attempting to convince a person who met every
argument with a tightly shut mouth and an offended air.
Towards almost everything of a positive nature Emily adopted
an attitude of passive resistance. The suggestion of any
innovation, however innocuous it might be, appeared to wound
her moral susceptibilities. I remember that once, when my
mother suggested some new variety of flower for the garden,
Emily pursed up her lips and said, "I have never heard of
it," just as though my mother had put forward a proposition
that was vaguely obscene.

In the early Roman mythology, where every aspect of life had
its tutelary Genius, Emily would have aptly figured as the
Goddess of Vis Inerti.




XXV

EPILOGUE


I should prefer to give this record of my childhood a happy
ending, and I am loath to close it in a minor key, on a note
of disillusion. But to pursue my career further into a
brighter mode would be to transcend the limits I have set
myself. I consider that my childhood comprises my early
years at home and the first four terms at Elmley; for,
although I remained at Elmley for four years in all, those
first four terms seem to me to contain all that is necessary
to elucidate the psychological history of my early years.
The remainder of my time there brought me no new spiritual
adventures, and the period represents, as it were, a
"marking time" in my mental development.

The break-up of my friendship with Longworth and all its
attendant humiliation and misery affected me deeply. But I
fancy that the dissolution of Arley had an even stronger
influence, all the more so because it was not so obvious.
The Longworth episode was at least a tangible one. I
realised it clearly as a source of sorrow and anguish; but
with regard to Arley the issue was more obscure. I hardly
understood at the time that places could be more important
than people. (This somewhat exaggerated sentiment for places
may perhaps be a peculiarity of my nature, and when I hear
cats spoken of slightingly as "being more attached to places
than to people" I always feel a little conscience-stricken.)

After all, Arley had formed the background to the first
stages in the evolution of my character. It was the soil in
which my personality had begun to sprout; so that, when it
was transformed, under the influence of Emily, so as to be
scarcely recognisable as the Arley I had known and loved in
the first years of my life, it was (to continue the
horticultural simile) as though the earth had been scraped
away from my roots.

The combination of these two discouragements, the Longworth
episode and the change at Arley, cast a benumbing spell upon
the closing years of my childhood, and it was not until I
left Elmley for Eton, which coincided with the transition
from childhood to adolescence, that a new and more vigorous
chapter in my life began.




[End of _First Childhood_ by Lord Berners]