CHAPTER XI
Self-questioning
"Friend, of my infinite dreams
Little enough endures;
Little howe'er it seems,
It is yours, all yours.
Fame hath a fleeting breath,
Hope may be frail or fond;
But Love shall be Love till death,
And perhaps beyond."
Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five miles of grass from the nearest point of the metropolis, and encompassed by isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country houses.[34] Most of the latter have fallen victims to the speculative builder, and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco. But one or two still remain among their hayfields and rhododendrons.
John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in schoolboys, to know something about the countryside in which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy, whenever released from "Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander with alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth and Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen Spire, making friends with cottagers, picking up traditions of an older and more lawless[35] epoch, and, with these, an ever-increasing love and loyalty to Harrow. So Byron had wandered a hundred years before.
These solitary rambles, however, were regarded with disfavour by schoolfellows who lacked John's imaginative temperament. The Caterpillar, for instance, protested, "Did I see you hobnobbing with a chaw the other day? I thought so; and you looked like a confounded bughunter." The Duffer's notions of topography were bounded by the cricket-ground on the one side of the Hill, and the footer-fields on the other; and his traditions held nothing much more romantic than A. J. Webbe's scores at Lord's. Fluff, as has been said, was too far removed from John to make him more than an occasional companion. And so, for several terms, John, for the most part, walked alone. By the time Desmond joined him, he had gleaned a knowledge which fascinated a friend of like sensibility and imagination. Together they revisited the old and explored the new. One never-to-be-forgotten day the boys discovered a deserted house of some pretensions about a mile from the Hill. Its grounds, covering several acres, were enclosed by a high oak paling, within which stood a thick belt of trees, effectually concealing what lay beyond. Grim iron gates, always locked, frowned upon the wayfarer; but John, flattening an inquisitive nose against the ironwork, could discern a carriage-drive overgrown with grass and weeds, and at the end of it a white stone portico. After this the place became to both boys a sort of Enchanted Castle. A dozen times they peered through the gates. No one went in or out of the grass-grown drive. The gatekeeper's lodge was uninhabited; there were no adjacent cottages where information might be sought. The boys called it "The Haunted House," and peopled it with ghosts; gorgeous bucks of the Regency, languishing beauties such as Lawrence painted, fiery politicians, duellists, mysterious black-a-vised foreigners. John connected it in fancy with the days when the gorgeous Duke of Chandos (who had Handel for his chapel-organist and was a Governor of Harrow and guardian of Lord Rodney) kept court at Cannons. He told Cæsar anecdotes of Dr. Parr, with his preposterous wig, his clouds of tobacco, his sesquipedalian quotations, coming down from Stanmore; and also of the great Lord Abercorn, another Governor of the school, who used to go out shooting in the blue riband of the Garter, and who entertained Pitt and Sir Walter Scott at Bentley Priory.
"What a lot you know!" said Cæsar. "And you have a memory like my father's. I'm beginning to think, Jonathan, that you'll be a swell like him some day—in the Cabinet, perhaps."
"Ah," said John, with shining eyes.
"I hope I shall live to see it," Desmond added, with feeling.
"Thanks, old chap. A crust or a triumph shared with a pal tastes twice as good."
One soft afternoon in spring, after four Bill, Desmond and John were approaching the iron gates of the Haunted House. They had not taken this particular walk since the day when Desmond got his Flannels. During the winter term, Scaife and Desmond became members of the Football Eleven. During this term Scaife won the hundred yards and quarter-mile; Desmond won the half-mile and mile. In a word, they had done, from the athletic point of view, nearly all that could be done. A glorious victory at Lord's seemed assured. Scaife, Captain and epitome of the brains and muscles of the Eleven, had grown into a powerful man, with the mind, the tastes, the passions of manhood. Desmond, on the other hand, while nearly as tall (and much handsomer in John's eyes), still retained the look of youth. Indeed, he looked younger than John, although a year his senior; and John knew himself to be the elder and wiser, knew that Desmond leaned upon him whenever a crutch was wanted.
The chief difficulty which besets a school friendship between two boys is that of being alone together. In Form, in the playing-fields, in the boarding-house, life is public. Even in the most secluded lane, a Harrow boy is not secure against the unwelcome salutations of heated athletes who have been taking a cross-country run, or leaping over, or into, the Pinner brook. To John the need of sanctuary had become pressing.
Upon this blessed spring afternoon—ever afterwards recalled with special affection—a retreat was suddenly provided. As the boys jumped over the last stile into the lane which led to the Haunted House, Desmond exclaimed—
"By Jove, the gates are open!"
Then they saw that a man, a sort of caretaker, was in the act of shutting them.
"May we go in?" John asked civilly.
The man hesitated, eyeing the boys. Desmond's smile melted him, as it would have melted a mummy.
"There's nothing to see," he said.
Then, in answer to a few eager questions, he told the story of the Haunted House; haunted, indeed, by the ghosts of what might have been. A city magnate owned the place. He had bought it because he wished to educate his only son at Harrow as a "Home-Boarder," or day-boy. A few weeks before the boy should have joined the school, he fell ill with diphtheria, and died. The mother, who nursed him, caught the disease and died also. The father, left alone, turned his back upon a place he loathed, resolving to hold it till building-values increased, but never to set eyes on it again. The caretaker and his wife occupied a couple of rooms in the house.
The boys glanced at the house, a common-place mansion, and began to explore the gardens. To their delight they found in the shrubberies, now a wilderness of laurel and rhododendron, a tower—what our forefathers called a "Gazebo," and their neighbours a "Folly." The top of it commanded a wide, unbroken view—
"Of all the lowland western lea,
The Uxbridge flats and meadows,
To where the Ruislip waters see
The Oxhey lights and shadows."
"There's the Spire," said John.
The man, who had joined them, nodded. "Yes," said he, "and my mistress and her boy are buried underneath it. She wanted him to be there—at the school, I mean—and there he is."
"We're very much obliged to you," said Desmond. He slipped a shilling into the man's hand, and added, "May we stay here for a bit? and perhaps we might come again—eh?"
"Thank you, sir," the man replied, touching his hat. "Come whenever you like, sir. The gates ain't really locked. I'll show you the trick of opening 'em when you come down."
He descended the steep flight of steps after the boys had thanked him.
"Sad story," said John, staring at the distant Spire.
Desmond hesitated. At times he revealed (to John alone) a curious melancholy.
"Sad," he repeated. "I don't know about that. Sad for the father, of course, but perhaps the son is well out of it. Don't look so amazed, Jonathan. Most fellows seem to make awful muddles of their lives. You won't, of course. I see you on pinnacles, but I——" He broke off with a mirthless laugh.
John waited. The air about them was soft and moist after a recent shower. The south-west wind stirred the pulses. Earth was once more tumid, about to bring forth. Already the hedges were green under the brown; bulbs were pushing delicate spears through the sweet-smelling soil; the buds upon a clump of fine beeches had begun to open. In this solitude, alone with teeming nature, John tried to interpret his friend's mood; but the spirit of melancholy eluded him, as if it were a will-o'-the-wisp dancing over an impassable marsh. Suddenly, there came to him, as there had come to the quicker imagination of his friend, the overpowering mystery of Spring, the sense of inevitable change, the impossibility of arresting it. At the moment all things seemed unsubstantial. Even the familiar Spire, powdered with gold by the slanting rays of the sun, appeared thinly transparent against the rosy mists behind it. The Hill, the solid Hill, rose out of the valley, a lavender-coloured shade upon the horizon.
"He came here," continued Desmond, dreamily—John guessed that he was speaking of the father—"a rich, prosperous man. I dare say he worked like a slave in the city. And he wanted peace and quiet after the Stock Exchange. Who wouldn't? And he planted out these gardens, thinking that every plant would grow up and thrive, and his son with them. And then the boy died; and the wife followed; and the enchanted castle became a place of horror; and now it is a wilderness. Haunted? I should think it was—haunted! I wish we'd never set foot in it. There's a curse on it."
"Let's go," said John.
"Too late. We'll stay now, and we'll come again, every Sunday. Wild and desolate as things look, they will be lovely when we get back in summer. Don't talk. I'm going to light a pipe."
Through the circling cloud of tobacco-smoke John stared at the face which had illumined nearly every hour of his school-life. Its peculiar vividness always amazed John, the vitality of it, and yet the perfect delicacy. Scaife's handsome features were full of vitality also, but coarseness underlay their bold lines and peered out of the keen, flashing eyes. When the Caterpillar left Harrow he had said to John—
"Good-bye, Jonathan. Awful rot your going to such a hole as Oxford! One has had quite enough schooling after five years here. It's settled I'm going into the Guards. My father tells me that old Scaife tried to get the Demon down on the Duke's list. But we don't fancy the Scaife brand."
Often and often John wondered whether Desmond saw the brand as plainly as the Caterpillar and he did. Sometimes he felt almost sure that a word, a look, a gesture betraying the bounder, had revolted Desmond; but a few hours later the bounder bounded into favour again, captivating eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his brains! He was so diabolically clever. John could always recall his face as he lay back in the chair in No. 15, sick, bruised, befuddled, and yet even in that moment of extreme prostration able to "play the game," as he put it, to defeat house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and intellect. It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to smoke.... Cæsar's voice broke in upon these meditations.
"I say—what are you frowning about?"
John, very red, replied nervously, "Now that you're in the Sixth, you ought to chuck smoking."
"What rot!" said Cæsar. "And here, in this tower, where one couldn't possibly be nailed——"
"That's it," said John. "It's just because you can't possibly be nailed that it seems to me not quite square."
Cæsar burst out laughing. "Jonathan, you are a rum 'un. Anyway—here goes!"
As he spoke he flung the pipe into the bushes below.
"Thanks," said John, quietly.
"We'll come here again. I like this old tower."
"You won't come here without me?"
"Oh, ho! I'm not to let the Demon into our paradise—eh? What a jealous old bird you are! Well, I like you to be jealous." And he laughed again.
"I am jealous," said John, slowly.
The School broke up on the following Tuesday, and Desmond went home with John.
This happened to be the first time that the friends had spent Easter together. John wondered whether Cæsar would take the Sacrament with his mother and him. He and Cæsar had been confirmed side by side in the Chapel at Harrow. He felt sure that Desmond would not refuse if he were asked. On Easter Eve, Mrs. Verney said, in her quiet, persuasive voice—
"You will join us to-morrow morning, Harry?"
Desmond flushed, and said, "Yes."
Not remembering his own mother, who had died when he was a child, he often told John that he felt like a son to Mrs. Verney. Upon Easter morning, the three met in the hall, and Desmond asked for a Prayer-book.
"I've lost mine," he murmured.
That afternoon, when they were alone upon the splendid moor above Stoneycross, Desmond said suddenly—
"Religion means a lot to you, Jonathan, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"But you never talk about it."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don't know how to begin."
"There's such sickening hypocrisy in this world."
John nodded.
"But your religion is a help to you, eh? Keeps you straight?"
John nodded again. Then Desmond said with an air of finality—
"I wish I'd some of your faith. I want it badly."
"If you want it badly, you will get it."
A long silence succeeded. Then Desmond exclaimed—
"Hullo! By Jove, there's a fox, a splendid fellow! He's come up here amongst the rabbits for a Sunday dinner. Gone awa-a-a-ay!"
He put his hand to his mouth and halloaed. A minute later he was talking of hunting. Religion was not mentioned till they were approaching the house for tea. On the threshold, Desmond said with a nervous laugh—
"I'd like your mother to give me a Prayer-book—a small one, nothing expensive."
During the following week they hunted with foxhounds or staghounds every day, except Wednesday. In the New Forest the Easter hunting is unique. Tremendous fellows come down from the shires—masters of famous packs, thrusters, keen to see May foxes killed. And the Forest entertains them handsomely, you may be sure. Big hampers are unpacked under the oaks which may have been saplings when William Rufus ruled in England; there are dinners, and, of course, a hunt-ball in the ancient village of Lyndhurst. But as each pleasant day passed, John told himself that the end was drawing near. This was almost the last holidays Cæsar and he would spend together; and, afterwards, would this friendship, so romantic a passion with one at least of them—would it wither away, or would it endure to the end?
At the end of a fortnight, Desmond returned to Eaton Square. Upon the eve of departure, Mrs. Verney gave him a small Prayer-book.
"I have written something in it," she said; "but don't open it now."
He looked at the fly-leaf as the train rolled out of Lyndhurst Station. Upon it, in Mrs. Verney's delicate handwriting, were a few lines. First his name and the date. Below, a text—"Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." And, below that again, a verse—
"Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart whose pulse may be—
Thy praise."
Desmond stared at the graceful writing long after the train had passed Totton. "Am I ungrateful?" he asked himself. "Not to them," he muttered; "surely not to them." He recalled what Warde had said about ingratitude being the unpardonable sin. Ah! it was loathsome, ingratitude! And much had been given to him. How much? For the first time he made, so to speak, an inventory of what he had received—his innumerable blessings. What had he given in return? And now the fine handwriting seemed blurred; he saw it through tears which he ought to have shed. "Oh, my God," he murmured, "am I ungrateful?" The question bit deeper into his mind, sinking from there into his soul.
When the School reassembled, a curious incident occurred. John happened to be going up the fine flight of steps that leads to the Old Schools. He was carrying some books and papers. Scaife, running down the steps, charged into him. By great good fortune, no damage was done except to a nicely-bound Sophocles. John, however, felt assured that Scaife had deliberately intended to knock him down, seized, possibly, by an ecstasy of blind rage not uncommon with him. Scaife smiled derisively, and said—
"A thousand apologies, Verney."
"One is enough," John replied, "if it is sincere."
They eyed each other steadily. John read a furious challenge in Scaife's bold eyes—more, a menace, the threatening frown of power thwarted. Scaife seemed to expand, to fill the horizon, to blot out the glad sunshine. Once again the curious certainty gripped the younger that Scaife was indeed the personification of evil, the more malefic because it stalked abroad masked. For Scaife had outlived his reputation as a breaker of the law. Since that terrible experience in the Fourth Form Room, he had paid tithe of mint and cummin. As a Sixth Form boy he upheld authority, laughing the while in his sleeve. He knew, of course, that one mistake, one slip, would be fatal. And he prided himself on not making mistakes. He gambled, but not with boys; he drank, not with boys; he denied his body nothing it craved; but he never forgot that expulsion from Harrow meant the loss of a commission in a smart cavalry regiment. When it was intimated to him that the Guards did not want his father's son, he laughed bitterly, and swore to himself that he would show the stuck-up snobs what a soldier they had turned away. A soldier he fully intended to be—a dashing cavalry leader, if the Fates were kind. His luck would stand by him; if not—why—what was life without luck? He had never been a reader, but he read now the lives of soldiers. Murat, Uxbridge, Cardigan, Hodson, were his heroes. Talking of their achievements, he inflamed his own mind and Desmond's.
The pleasant summer days passed. May melted into June. And each Sunday John and Desmond walked to the Haunted House, ascended the tower, and talked. Scaife was leaving at the end of the summer. Desmond was staying on for the winter term; then John would have him entirely to himself. This thought illumined dark hours, when he saw his friend whirled away by Scaife, transported, as it were, by the irresistible power of the man of action. That nothing should be wanting to that trebly-fortunate youth, he had helped to win the Public Schools' Racquets Championship. The Manor was now the crack house—cock-house at racquets and football, certain to be cock-house at cricket. And Scaife got most of the credit, not Warde, who smiled more than ever, and talked continually of Balliol Scholarships. He never bragged of victories past.
Meantime, John was devoting all energies to the competition for the Prize Essay. The Head Master had propounded as theme: "The History and Influence of Parliamentary Oratory." Bit by bit, John read or declaimed it to Desmond. Then, according to custom, Desmond copied it out for his friend. Signed "Spero Infestis," with a sealed envelope containing John's name inside and the motto outside, the MS. was placed in the Head Master's letter-box. John, cooling rapidly after the fever of composition, condemned his stuff as hopelessly bad; Cæsar went about telling everybody that Jonathan would win easily, "with a bit to spare." John did win, but that proved to be the least part of his triumph. The Essay had to be declaimed upon Speech Day. Once more John experienced the pangs that had twisted him at the concert, long ago, when he had sung to the Nation's hero. And as before, he began weakly. Then, the fire seizing him, self-consciousness was exorcised by feeling, and forgetful of the hundreds of faces about him, he burst into genuine oratory. Thrilled himself, he thrilled others. His voice faltered again, but with an emotion that found an echo in the hearts of his audience; his hand shook, feeling the pulse of old and young in front of him. Dominated, swept away by his theme, he dominated others. When he finished, in the silence that preceded the roar of applause, he knew that he had triumphed, for he saw Desmond's glowing countenance, radiant with pleasure, transfigured by amazement and admiration. Next day a great newspaper hailed the Harrow boy as one destined to delight and to lead, perhaps, an all-conquering party in the House of Commons. And yet, warmed to the core by this praise, John counted it as nothing compared with his mother's smile and Desmond's fervent grip.
Fortune, however, comes to no man—or boy—with both hands full. Immediately after Speech Day, John's bubble of pride and happiness was pricked by Scaife. Midsummer madness seized the Demon. One may conceive that the innate recklessness of his nature, suppressed by an iron will, and smouldering throughout many months, burst at last into flame. Desmond told John that the Demon had spent a riotous night in town. He had slipped out of the Manor after prayers, had driven up to a certain club in Regent Street, returned in time for first school, fresh as paint—so Desmond said—and then, not content with such an achievement, must needs brag of it to Desmond.
"And if he's nailed, Eton wins," concluded Desmond. "I've told you, because together we must put a stop to such larks."
John slightly raised his thick eyebrows. It was curious that Cæsar always chose to ignore the hatred which he must have known to exist between his two friends. Or did he fatuously believe that, because John exercised an influence over himself, the same influence would or could be exercised over Scaife?
"We?" said John.
"I've tried and failed. But together, I say——"
"Jonathan, you must."
"It would be a fool's errand."
"We three have gone up the School together. You have never been fair to Scaife. I tell you he's sound at core. Why, after he was swished——"
Desmond told John what had passed; John shook his head. He could understand better than any one else why Scaife had broken down.
"He has splendid ambitions," pursued Desmond. "He's going to be a great soldier, you see. He thinks of nothing else. You never have liked him, but because of that I thought you would do what you could."
The disappointment and chagrin in his voice shook John's resolution.
"To please you, I'll try."
And accordingly the absurd experiment was made. Afterwards, John asked himself a thousand times why he had not foreseen the inevitable result. But the explanation is almost too simple to be recorded: he wished to convince a friend that he would attempt anything to prove his friendship.
That night they went together to Scaife's room. The second-best room in the Manor, situated upon the first floor, it overlooked the back of the garden, where there was a tangled thicket of laurustinus and rhododendron. Scaife had spent much money in making this room as comfortable as possible. It had the appearance of a man's room, and presented all the characteristics of the man who lived in it. Everything connected with Scaife's triumphal march through the School was preserved. On the walls were his caps, fezes, and cups. You could hardly see the paper for the framed photographs of Scaife and his fellow "bloods." Scaife as cricketer, Scaife as football-player, Scaife as racquet-player and athlete, stared boldly and triumphantly at you. He had a fine desk covered with massive silver ornaments. Upon this, as upon everything else in the room, was the hall-mark of the successful man of business. The papers, the pens and pencils, the filed bills and letters, the books of reference, spoke eloquently of a mind that used order as a means to a definite end. All his books were well bound. His boots were on trees. His racquets were in their press. Had you opened his chest of drawers, you would have found his clothes in perfect condition. Obviously, to an observant eye, the owner of this room gave his mind to details, because he realized that on details hang great and successful enterprises.
Scaife stared at John, but welcomed him civilly enough. Cricket, of course, explained this unexpected visit. As Desmond blurted out what was in his mind, Scaife frowned; then he laughed unpleasantly.
"And so I told Jonathan," concluded Desmond.
"So you told Jonathan," repeated Scaife. "Are you in the habit of telling Jonathan,"—the derisive inflection as he pronounced the name warned John at least that he had much better have stayed away—"things which concern others and which don't concern him?"
"If you're going to take it like that——"
"Keep cool, Cæsar. I'll admit that you mean well. I should like to hear what Verney has to say."
At that John spoke—haltingly. Fluent speech upon any subject very dear to him had always been difficult. He could talk glibly enough about ordinary topics; his sense of humour, his retentive memory, made him welcome even in the critical society of Eaton Square, but you know him as a creature of unplumbed reserves. The matter in hand was so vital that he could not touch it with firm hands or voice. He spoke at his worst, and he knew it; concluding an incoherent and slightly inarticulate recital of the reasons which ought to keep Scaife in his house at night with a lame "Two heads ought to prevail against one."
Scaife showed his fine teeth. "You think that? Your head and Cæsar's against mine?"
The challenge revealed itself in the derisive, sneering tone.
John shrugged his shoulders and rose. "I have blundered; I am sorry."
"Hold hard," said Scaife. He read censure upon Desmond's ingenuous countenance. Then his temper whipped him to a furious resentment against John, as an enemy who had turned the tables with good breeding; who had gained, indeed, a victory against odds. Scaife drew in his breath; his brows met in a frown. "You have not blundered; and you are not sorry," he said deliberately. "I'm not a fool, Verney; but perhaps I have underrated your ability. You're as clever as they make 'em. You knew well enough that you were the last person in the world to lead me in a string; you knew that, I say, and yet you come here to pose as the righteous youth, doing his duty—eh?—against odds, and accepting credit for the same from Cæsar. Why, it's plain to me as the nose upon your face that in your heart you would like me to be sacked."
Desmond interrupted. "You are mad, Demon. Take that back; take it back!"
"Ask him," said Scaife. "He hates me, and common decency ought to have kept him out of this room. But he's not a liar. Ask him. Put it your own way. Soften it, make pap of it, if you like, but get an answer."
"Jonathan, it is not true, is it? You don't like Scaife; but you would be sorry, very sorry, to see him—sacked."
"I'm glad you've not funked it," said Scaife. "You've put it squarely. Let him answer it as squarely."
John was white to the lips, white and trembling; despicable in his own eyes, how much more despicable, therefore, in the eyes of his friend, whose passionate faith in him was about to be scorched and shrivelled.
Scaife began to laugh.
"For God's sake, don't laugh!" said Desmond. "Jonathan, I know you are too proud to defend yourself against such an abominable charge."
"He's not a liar," said Scaife.
"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.
"You have wished that he might be sacked?"
"Yes."
John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other was too impetuous, too inexperienced to interpret. Into that look of passionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame. Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife would prevail against himself—because, with unerring instinct, he had apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from Cæsar's path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and Scaife had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish success. John lowered his eyes and walked from the room.
When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations. They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Cæsar would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he did—if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the tower, looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above the thorns and brambles of the wilderness, words would come to him.
But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.