God's Sparrows Page 7

  “I will say only this,” said Pen, “and then we won’t speak of it again. Never again run away from your troubles, my dear boy. Face them. Fight them out. Do you understand? And will you promise?”

  “Y-yes .”

  Maud put her hand on his knee and whispered: “Tell me, dear, why did you?” The boy stiffened; at last, under her coaxing, he stammered: “I thought you didn’t love me because I hurt Jo.” Appalled, she stared mistily over his head. “How could you think such a thing!” she choked.

  “It’s damned odd,” said Charles hastily, “that he should run to a gipsy camp. Damned odd!”

  No one answered him.

  “Well, in that boy New England meets the cavaliers, Pen — and we’ll see.”

  “Pen,” said Maud, “I think Dan needs to get away from home more. Why not send him to school? There’s St. Horatius. He and Alastair could go in the autumn.”

  Pen considered. “He does need discipline.”

  “Yes. To iron out that sullen temper of his,” agreed Murdo.

  “There’s temper on both sides of the family, Murdo,” said Maud quickly.

  Pen said doubtfully: “It’s a poor school, though. They don’t teach them anything much.”

  “It is not bad in some ways, Pen. They make gentlemen of them and the boys have a happy time there. And, Pen, they do have good discipline.”

  The carriage stopped before Ardentinny and they got out. Walking up from the front gate, Charles put one arm in Dan’s and thumped him in the ribs. “You poor little shrimp!… Listen to me Dan. I’ll tell you a secret. Things don’t matter as much as you think they do, laddie. Now you enjoy life, keep your own counsel and your private thoughts, and think how amusing people are. Most likely you’ll take it hard, though — you’re a Thatcher, I expect.… Chin up, now! You’re only a boy, but you’ll make a man someday.”

  Dan liked his tone, though he did not understand him.

  Chapter III

  I

  St. Horatius School was a thick-walled stone house built as a residence during the Crimean War; it was as square, as angular, as bleakly severe as the Scot who had planned it. Built before the days of central heating, it still lacked a furnace. Each classroom had an open fireplace during winter; but in the cold, wet, autumn weather the stone walls of the classrooms sweated clammily. “Boys should become used to res augustae ,” said Mr. Mandover, the headmaster. “No better training in the world. I allow of no pampering in my school!”

  The cornerstones of Mr. Mandover’s theory of education were cricket and Latin. Cricket, he believed, taught one to play games like a gentleman, while the study of a dead language, he maintained, built character by forcing a boy to do regularly what he did not want to do. “Justum et tenacem propositi vir. Tenacem propositi — ‘tenacious of,’ Thatcher? That makes neither English nor Latin nor common sense! Remember, Thatcher, that in translating Latin — called by egregious oafs a dead language! — you are dealing not with a bludgeon but a rapier. Translate with that subtlety you would use in cutting a fast ball through the slips. Horace is giving us a picture of the ideal man. ‘Tenacious of,’ indeed!”

  Mr. Mandover began the day at St. Horatius with a chapter from the Bible followed by other religious exercises, such as the proper intoning of “when two or three are gathered together.” Religion attended to for the day, justice followed. “Tripp!” Mr. Mandover would expel the name in a voice that cut through the torpid atmosphere of schoolboy devotion like a whiplash. No further explanation was needed. Knowing the ceremonial of punishment, Tripp would stand up slowly and march to the centre of the room.

  “How many hours, Tripp?”

  “Five, sir.”

  If a tongue-lashing followed, the class relaxed, for Mr. Mandover considered it unjust to mingle exhortation and punishment. Usually, however, Mandover would send the culprit to his study for the stick.

  Silence while Tripp went for the cane. Mr. Mandover rustled papers, and the class held its breath wondering whether Tripp would whimper. Tripp returned and handed the cane handle foremost to Mr. Mandover. The cane descended whish-h — whack and the victim, practised in the art of taking a licking, lowered his hand with the swing of the stick to minimize the impact.

  “Now, Tripp. Don’t let me see you here again for at least a month.”

  “Yes, sir. No, sir.”

  In all this there was nothing degrading. It was felt that one was not properly blooded, one had not really smelt powder, until one had taken a caning without a whimper. At ten years and under, the chastisement was light and private, administered on a part of the anatomy specially padded by nature for the contingency. Over ten and up to adolescence, the culprit, having reached years of dignity if not of discretion, received a swipe for each hour of detention on alternate palms — in public. The occasion satisfied all the canons of Greek tragedy. There was dignity, ceremonial, a chorus, and a sense of the ineluctable justice of the gods (shared even by the protagonist). On the part of the onlookers there was an enjoyable feeling of awe and terror, if not of pity, which might have been expressed by the phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I, Smith Minor.”

  Spring brought long, lazy afternoons of cricket on green grass under the clear sky, before time had any particular meaning. Sometimes when there was a match with another school, there would be a short report in the paper. “For St. Horatius, Thatcher Minor scored forty-two runs. Thatcher Major also did well.” The chink of a ball well hit, the stately march of flannelled figures after an over, the thrill of seeing the bails fly after a well-pitched ball, the fearful delight of stalking out from the pavilion under all eyes to take the first ball; these things one remembered after years when one told oneself, “Anyway, I had a jolly happy childhood.”

  Once Dan learnt his new world, he took it pretty much for granted. He learnt the different sizes and sorts of human nature. There were amiable scamps, like Geoffrey Tripp. There were boys who were clever and unpopular, like Flint, and boys who were both clever and popular, like Alastair; there were boys who got bullied and boys who bullied; there were those masters you could rag and those you couldn’t. These were not matters for speculation, they were simply facts.

  Alastair, easily the leader in all he attempted, was sought by everyone. But with one exception, Dan chose his friends rather than they him. The exception was his cousin Quentin Thatcher.

  One day Jiffy Tripp greeted him in the hall with the news that there was a new boy in the school, a boarder.

  “I know him,” said Dan, “he’s my cousin.”

  “Well, if you ask me, he’s a bit of an ass. Last night during study Mandover asked him if he could translate. He said he could and — listen Granny! — he spouted the whole passage, quantities and all. Then he told Mandover he’d been taught to pronounce Latin as the Romans pronounced it, not the English.”

  Dan grinned. “And what did Cut-to-slips say?”

  “Stared at him for a minute — you know, as if he were a laboratory specimen not well pickled, and said that German methods of scholarship were rapidly making it impossible for a gentleman to quote Latin at all.… Come on! The fellows are going to rag him.”

  One of the doors in the great hall led into a corridor opening into what had once been a scullery. Now it was lined with handwash basins, and it was a polite fiction that the boys washed their hands and faces before going home from school. This room was sometimes put to more clandestine uses, and at the present moment it and the corridor leading to it were crammed with boys, their backs turned to Dan and Tripp.

  A tall, dark boy with a fiery, contemptuous expression faced the jeering ring of boys.

  “What’s your name?”

  “What do you want to know for?”

  “Well, you don’t want us to call you Grubby or Hatpin or Stinkfish, do you?”

  “My name’s Thatcher.”
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  “An honourable name! Alastair, Granny, where are you? Here’s your long lost uncle from Patagonia. I bet you’re a nigger, Thatcher, aren’t you? What’s your full name?”

  “George Pilgrim Thatcher.”

  “Is your name Pilgrim!”

  “Yes, it is — if it’s any of your business!”

  It seemed too good to be true. Several boys embraced one another in convulsive merriment.

  “Well, Pill, what have you come here for? Come on, Pill, speak up. You had enough to say for yourself last night!”

  “To go to school.”

  “To go to school! Now isn’t that nice for us. Pill’s going to school with us, and maybe if we’re nice he’ll teach us how to read our Latin properly. Well, Pill, so you’ll feel at home, we’re going to initiate you into the Order of the Bath.”

  Dan pushed through the circle and said briefly: “No, you’re not!”

  “Hello, Granny! Look here, is he really your cousin?”

  “Yes, he is. And if you want to know what he’s here for, I’ll tell you. His parents were drowned on the Titanic , and Pill was in a lifeboat for forty-eight hours.”

  Mockery gave place to curiosity and even respect in the faces of his tormentors.

  “Say, Pill, were your parents really drowned?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy smoke!”

  “Come on, Pill,” said Dan, “we’ll go and get some ginger beer.”

  They went down the path to the tuck shop. “You’re snivelling, you mug!” exclaimed Dan. “You don’t need to bother about them. You should have seen what they did to me when I was a new boy.… Besides, they think you’re a stout fellow. Your parents were drowned on the Titanic — see?”

  Quentin stamped his foot — just like a girl! thought Dan — and said furiously: “I’m not snivelling. I’m angry! And ‘I loathe the vulgar mob and avoid them’ arceo valgum profanum , you know.” Dan gaped at him. “I’m going to be a great writer, and great writers are always misunderstood by the mob.… I’m not snivelling! I’ll punch you if you say I am. It’s because you’re so darned decent.… Look here, Dan, let’s swear friendship forever and ever.”

  Dan stared at him curiously, not unkindly, but as at a strange animal. “You’re a queer fish, Pill. You’re like my sister. She always wants to cry when she’s happy or sad. She cries when I remember to give her a birthday present, and she cries when I don’t. If she doesn’t give me one, I get mad as blazes, but I don’t cry!”

  Quentin paid not the least attention to this. He went on ardently. “And you’ll see what a good friend I’ll be. I bet you there’ll be a war someday and I’ll save your life.… Will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Be brothers-in-arms .”

  “Not yet. I’ll see.… There’s no war now. Let’s forget it, Pill, and get that ginger beer.”

  “I’ll never forget it,” said Quentin.… “All right, I’ll buy the beer and we’ll drink a toast to our friendship. And will you kindly remember not to call me ‘Pill’? I’ll poke you one if you do.”

  Quentin boarded at St. Horatius, and being a year older than Dan, he became Thatcher Maximus. The boys let him alone because of his sharp tongue, but he never won popularity, for he was nearsighted and had to peer at people and he was no good at games; try how he would — and he tried again and again — he could not catch a ball to save his life. Moreover, he was too proud to accept the role of the clever ass who is a mug at games. He and Dan were opposites. Dan was steady, except when he lost his temper; Quentin was changeable and moody. He was both timid and reckless and, plagued by too vivid an imagination, he was afraid of a thousand things — and dared not give in to a single fear.

  The boys were growing up. Growing outward, they burst the chrysalis and began to show the kind of insect they were going to become; growing inward, they became aware of other boys as different persons from themselves. Coming back from the holidays, one found one’s best friend turned into an alien creature in long trousers with an uncertain command over his voice.

  Mr. Mandover annually delivered a lecture to those boys who had newly assumed the toga virilis. Tilting his chair back and twisting his moustache, he talked with complacency and gusto.

  “For tomorrow,” he began, “you will write an essay on the ‘Awkward Age.’ The Awkward Age is when a boy first realizes that he is grubby without and unkempt within. Plastered with mud, he comes running into the house screaming at the top of his voice. Having been told to clean his boots lest worse befall him and because there are guests in the house, he wipes them off on the guest towel, stumbles down the stairs, and rushing into the room where his mother is giving tea to some ladies, he trips over a chair and measures his length on the floor. Recovering himself, he has eyes for nothing but the cake plate, whence he seizes a cake in each hand, and cramming his mouth, full rushes from the room without having uttered a single civilized word. He has an awkward body and a clumsy little soul. If by instinct and nurture he is a gentleman, he will content himself with sticking hatpins into his fellows and perpetrating strange odours in the classroom; if, however, he is a cad, he will pull the wings off flies and bully smaller boys — and worse. Though he tells the truth manfully, he is still a savage. Nonetheless, he is beginning to realize dimly that he is no longer a child. To be sure, he has not yet looked at himself and seen himself for the shameless little ruffian he is, nor has he looked below the surface of his fellows. In his folly he is still inclined to say of Shrimp Minor, ‘Shrimp Minor is a worm,’ simply because Shrimp Minor is no good at games and cries if you look at him — not realizing that Shrimp is handicapped by bad eyesight and can’t fight and knows it.… Mark my words, boys, your comings and your goings are observed by your elders. Not a day passes in which I do not have to write a letter of recommendation for some old boy whose virtues and failings — whose failings and virtues I know even better than my own. Most of you, by an incredible miracle of nature will eventually turn into men. One or two of you — I name no names, but I know the ones I speak of, and let them beware ! — will, I am convinced, end their days hanging higher than Haman.… Three pages on the ‘Awkward Age’ — not less than ten words to the line — for tomorrow at nine o’clock.”

  II

  Pen remarked in the noncommittal voice he always used when speaking of his brother-in-law : “Murdo thinks Europe is drifting toward war. He thinks he ought to come back to the West.”

  “Sounds like Murdo,” said Charles; “he left Japan because he thought there would be trouble in China, now he wants to leave China because he hopes there will be trouble at home.”

  “‘Hopes,’ Charles?” exclaimed Euphemia severely.

  “Oh, he doesn’t call it hope. But make no mistake about Murdo. It’s meat and drink to him to be in the centre of a row! I know my brother; he’s a restless soul.”

  It was “after church” in the evening and, as usual, the family had gathered together for high tea. On Sunday evenings no servants were present and the family relaxed and expanded, each member talking of his own interests to whomever would listen, so that before long, by a process of social selection, there was always a cleavage of sexes. The men (and Euphemia) discussed the affairs of the universe, the women were soon engrossed in their practical world within a world. Everyone was talking except Joanna, who was quiet as a mouse, liking best to listen, and Tessa Thatcher, who ate scarcely anything and who hoped that, presently, her husband would feel the quality of her silence.

  Alastair, to stir up mischief, began to talk of the Thatcher family motto. Balancing a fork on his finger to attract attention, he said: “I came across the Thatcher motto today. It’s pretty loathsome.” Pen looked up quickly and exclaimed: “Indeed! What’s wrong with it?” — “It’s so stuffy, Father. Virtute. So obvious, so tri
te. They might as well hurl the Bible in your face.… What’s the Burnet motto?” Three voices answered in unison. “Curre ad astras. ” — “That means, ‘curry favour with the big wigs,’ doesn’t it?” asked Alastair innocently. Fanny who had not much humour cried indignantly: “No! It means, roughly, ‘hitch your wagon to a star.’ Does that mean anything to you, young sir? It ought to, it’s four hundred years old!”

  “As a matter of fact,” put in Charles, “the first Burnet who could steal enough money to buy a coat of arms, proved the motto by running away at the battle of Flodden. But everybody ran at Flodden and you’ll find that the Burnets are never left behind.” “Well,” said Alastair, “I think everyone ought to make their own motto, so I’ve thought of one in French because French is the language of chivalry.” — “What is it,” asked Euphemia incautiously. “Toujours les entrailles ,” said Alastair. After a pause, during which the family translated this effort, Maud said severely: “Alastair, children should be seen but not heard!”

  The conversation divided into streams, each stream isolated by the general din. Charles turned to Tessa Thatcher. “You’re very quiet tonight, Tessa, mia . It isn’t like you.” Because he was talking to a pretty woman, his voice curled up into an ingratiating laugh at the end of his sentence.

  “Don’t you ever feel, Charles, that you want to go inside and shut the door after you?”

  “Not often. I’d rather be outside. I like noise and chatter and gaiety.”

  “But aren’t you ever serious?”

  “As little as possible. You know what the sundial says?”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says, horas non numero nisi serenas. I’ll translate it for you. ‘I record only the sunny times’ .… That’s me, Tessa. But I should have thought that you, too —”

  “Much you know about me, Charles Burnet.… Sometimes I could almost scream at people’s lack of sensibility. People say the same things over and over simply because they’re used to saying them and without ever thinking what they mean!”