§ 6
“Come on, fathead!” said Probyn as he drew near.
Peter had expected that tone. He affected indifference.
“What’s your name?” asked Probyn.
“Stubland,” said Peter. “You Probyn?”
“Stubland,” said Probyn. “Stubland. What’s your Christian name?”
“Peter. What’s yours?”
Probyn disregarded this counter question markedly. “Simon Peter, eh! Your father got you out of the Bible, I expect. Know anything of cricket, Simon Peter?”
“Not much,” said Simon Peter.
“Can you swim?”
“No.”
“Can you fight?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s your father?”
Peter didn’t answer. Instead, he fixed his attention upon a fair-haired boy of about his own size who was standing at the end of the parallel bars. “What’s your name?” he asked.
The fair boy looked at Probyn.
“Damn it!” said Probyn. “I asked you a question, Mr. Simon Peter.”
Peter continued disregardful. “Hasn’t this school got a flagstaff?” he asked generally.
Probyn came closer to him and gripped him by the shoulder. “I asked you a question, Mr. Simon Peter. What is your father?”
It was a question Peter could not answer because for some obscure reason he could not bring himself to say that his father was dead. If ever he said that, he knew his father would be dead. But what else could he say of his father? So he seemed to shrink a little and remained mute. “We’ll have to cross-examine you,” said Probyn, and shook him.
The fair boy came in front of Peter. It was clear he had great confidence in Probyn. He had a fat, smooth, round face that Peter disliked.
“Simon Peter,” he said. “Answer up.”
“What is your father?” said Probyn.
“What’s your father?” repeated the fair boy, and then suddenly flicked Peter under the nose with his finger.
But this did at least enable Peter to change the subject. He smote at the fat-faced boy with great vigour and missed him. The fat-faced boy dodged back quickly.
“Hullo!” said Probyn. “Ginger!”
“That chap’s not going to touch my nose,” said Peter. “Anyhow.”
“Touch it when I like,” said the fat-faced boy.
“You won’t.”
“You want to fight?” asked the fat-faced boy, conscious of popular support.
Peter said he wasn’t going to have his nose flicked anyhow.
“Flick it again, Newton,” said Probyn, “and see.”
“I’ll show you in no time,” said Newton.
“Why!—I’d lick you with one hand,” continued Newton.
Peter said nothing. But he regarded his antagonist very intently.
“Skinny little snipe,” said Newton. “Whaddyou think you’d do to me?”
“Hit him, Newton,” said a cadaverous boy with freckles.
“Hit him, Newton. He’s too cocky,” said another. “Flick his silly nose again and see.”
“I’ll hit him ’f’e wants it,” said Newton, and buttoned up his jacket in a preparatory way.
“Hit him, Newton,” other voices urged.
“Let him put up his fists,” said Newton.
“Do that when I please,” said Peter rather faintly.
Newton had seemed at first just about Peter’s size. Now he seemed very much larger. All the boys seemed to have grown larger. They were gathering in a vast circle of doom round a minute and friendless Peter. Probyn loomed over him like a figure of fate. Peter wondered whether he need have hit at Newton. It seemed now a very unwise thing indeed to have done. Newton was alternately swaying towards him and swaying away from him, and repeating his demand for Peter to put his hands up. He seemed on the verge of flicking again. He was going to flick. Probyn watched them both critically. Then with a rapid movement of the mind Peter realized that Newton’s face was swaying now well within his range; the moment had come, and desperately, with a great effort and a wide and sweeping movement of the arm, he smote hard at Newton’s cheek. Smack. A good blow. Newton recoiled with an expression of astonishment. “You—swine!” he said.
Two other boys came running across the playground, and voices explained, “New boy.... Fight....”
But curiously enough the fight did not go on. Newton at a slightly greater distance continued to loom threateningly, but did no more than loom. His cheek was very red. “I’ll break your jaw, cutting at me like that,” he said. “You swine!” He used foul and novel terms expressive of rage. He looked at Probyn as if for approval, but Probyn offered none. He continued to threaten, but he did not come within arm’s length again.
“Hit him back, Newton,” several voices urged, but with no success.
“Wait till I start on him,” said Newton.
“Buck up, young Newton,” said Probyn suddenly, “and stop jawing. You began it. I’m not going to help you. Make a ring, you chaps. It’s a fair fight.”
Peter found himself facing Newton in the centre of an interested circle.
Newton was walking crab fashion athwart the circle, swaying with his fists and elbows high. He was now acting a dangerous intentness. “Come on,” he said terribly.
“Hit him, Newton,” said the cadaverous boy. “Don’t wait for him.”
“You started it, Newton,” Probyn insisted. “And he’s hit you fair.”
A loud familiar sound, the clamorous ringing of a bell, struck across the suspended drama. “That’s tea,” said Newton eagerly, dropping his fists. “It’s no good starting on him now.”
“You’ll have to fight him later,” said Probyn. “Now he’s hit you.”
“It’s up to you, Newton,” said the cadaverous boy, evidently following Probyn’s lead.
“Cavé. It’s Noser,” said a voice.
There was a little pause.
“Toke!” cried Probyn.
“Toke, Simon Peter,” said the cadaverous boy informingly....
Peter found himself no longer in focus. Every one was moving towards the door whence Peter had descended to the playground, and at this door there now stood a middle-aged man with a large nose and a sly expression, surveying the boys.
Impelled by gregarious instincts, Peter followed the crowd.
He did not like these hostile boys. He did not like this shabby-looking place. He was quite ready to believe that presently he would have to go on fighting Newton. He was not particularly afraid of Newton, but he perceived that Probyn stood behind him. He detested Probyn already. He was afraid of Probyn. Probyn was like a golliwog. He knew by instinct that Probyn was full of disagreeable possibilities for him, and that it would be very hard to get away from Probyn. And what did it all mean? Was he never going back to Limpsfield again?
The bell had had exactly the tone of the tea bell at Miss Murgatroyd’s school. It might have been the same bell. And it had made his heart homesick for the colour and brightness of the School of St. George and the Venerable Bede, and for the friendly garden and familiar rooms of Ingle-Nook. For the first time he realized that he had fallen into this school as an animal falls into a trap, that his world had changed, that home was very far away....
And what had they done to Joan?...
Had he to live here always?...
It struck Mr. Noakley, the assistant master with the large nose, as he watched the boys at tea, that the new boy had a face like a doll, but really that face with its set, shining, expressionless eyes was only the mask, the very thin mask, that covered a violent disposition to blubber....
Well, no one was going to see Peter blub. No one was going to hear him blub....
Tonight perhaps in bed.
He had still to realize the publicity of a school dormitory....
He knew he couldn’t box, but he had seen something in Newton’s eyes that made him feel that Newton was not invincible. He would grip his fists in a very knobby way and hit Newton as hard as he could in the face. Oh!—frightfully hard....
Peter was not eating very much. “Bags I your slice of Toke,” said the cadaverous boy.
“Take the beastly stuff,” said Peter.
“Little spoilt mammy coddle,” thought old Nosey Noakley. “We aren’t good enough for him.”