Years of Plenty

by Ivor John Carnegie Brown

X

During the winter term before he was to go up to Oxford for a scholarship examination Martin felt more than ever isolated. Rayner was a good enough companion for 'brewing' or a casual talk, but he had, distinctly, his limitations. It was only now, when Gregson had gone to Oxford and the light, that Martin realised how much he missed him and how dark and murky was the cave of school life.

There is little satisfaction to be derived from discoveries which cannot be communicated: to find a perfect poem, or, if you are young, a perfect epigram, is good, but to let your friends know you have found it is doubly delightful. And now Martin had to keep his discoveries to himself: if he devised another argument against the existence of God or detected another logical absurdity in Christian dogma there was no one to whom he could declare his joy: if he stumbled in his reading on a thing which pleased him—well, the rest of the house were swine for such a pearl.

Because Martin was treading the path of knowledge alone he was driven by sheer force of necessity into intellectual priggishness and crudity. When he was not engaged in prefectorial work, he tended to become a recluse and to read in his study for long periods at a stretch: and because he had no opposition and no conversation, save the rather mild stimulus of discussing æsthetics with Mrs Berney, he became, as time went on, more violent in his opinions. He often longed for the bitter tongue and incisive reasoning of Gregson, not least when he had completed a course of Shaw's dramas. There was no escape from attendance at chapel and prayers and the wrath always engendered in the sceptic by compulsory religion should have an outlet. Martin, having no one to talk to, was forced to amuse himself with blasphemous imaginings: but even that began to pall.

It was at this point that he became aware of Finney. Until he had become a prefect and learned by experience that the ruler's task is not always the easiest and most enjoyable, he had always adopted the natural attitude to masters. A 'crusher' was just a person whom, if possible, one ragged. If he could hold his own, well and good: if not, he merited contempt, not mercy, and the more he was ragged the better it would be for the world at large. But when Martin discovered from his own experience that to be ragged is torture, he began to regard the doings and sufferings of the masters in a different light. It suddenly struck him, with all the vivid effect of a surprise, that these people were human beings of like passions with himself.

Following quickly on that discovery came the recognition of the fact that Finney was being ragged. Reginald Finney, B.A., had not left Oxford for more than two years, but he had bravely married, and now he lived in a tiny cottage some distance from the school. Every day he bicycled in to take the Upper Fourth, Classical, and to devote occasional hours to the Upper Sixth. In time, of course, he would become a Sixth form master, for he had excellent degrees—two firsts and a 'mention' in the Ireland scholarship. He had lingered at Oxford with a view to a fellowship, but nothing turned up: at last he had been compelled by economic pressure to take the position offered him at Elfrey.

Nothing could have been more disastrous. For twenty years the Upper Fourth had passed a somnolent existence under the direction of an amiable and unassuming cleric. Much to the general disgust the dear old man had, after a severe attack of pneumonia, resigned. In twenty years, as was only natural, the Upper Fourth had become an institution: terms and times continued to change, but the Upper Fourth did nothing of the kind. Fourth-formers came and went in scores, but their successors always managed to keep up the traditions of their inheritance with spirit and success. There would be four or five clever and energetic children, people rising rapidly to the Fifth, Sixth, and university scholarships; then there would be eight or ten inky and unambitious persons who would never get beyond the Fifth. And lastly there would be four or five monsters of seventeen or eighteen who were engaged in getting the greatest possible enjoyment out of their last year at school. Good athletes as a rule, they were popular in their house and merely stayed on till the fatal day of superannuation in order to win cups and caps and enjoy a serene life before disappearing into the dingy office of an uncle or the rough and tumble of a planter's existence. In the days of the amiable cleric the Upper Fourth had been to them Nirvana.

To such a form came Finney, clever, inexperienced, nervous: not even his physique was imposing. He liked and encouraged the clever little boys and made fruitless efforts to bully the ink-stained loafers; he also determined to assault the fortress of the Olympians and to make the great ones work; but he broke his soul upon a rock. When he adjured them to do a little work they smiled in toleration. When he suggested a change in the quantity or quality of their preparation he was politely informed that Mr Foss never expected so much. He then lost his temper, remarked savagely that he wouldn't be bound by the idiosyncrasies of Mr Foss, and dealt out impositions. A schoolmaster cannot afford to lose his temper unless he has complete self-confidence and the will never to retract. Finney had not been gifted with a forceful personality, and the weak man in a temper is a most pitiable sight. The impositions meant the declaration of war and in that war Finney was beaten all along the line.

To begin with, however, he relied on his hours with the Upper Sixth for spiritual comfort, but his own experiences at school should have warned him that even Upper Sixths are human. It was his duty to read classical authors with them at a great pace and without attention to detail in order to give the competitors for university scholarships a wider knowledge of the ancient literature. When he came to read Tacitus with them he soon discovered that they were quite capable of amusing themselves. Having learned that journalese translations annoyed him, they racked their brains and searched the halfpenny press for new phrases. Finney shuddered and protested: next he whined and finally lost his temper. This display was gratifying to the Upper Sixth, who had just spent two tedious hours listening to Foskett on Greek dialects. Besides, there is always satisfaction in luring fish to one's bait.

Martin loathed and dreaded these hours. Not only did his recent experiences as a prefect compel him to sympathise with the impotent wielder of authority, but he had been attracted by Finney from the first. Finney worked in earnest and without pose or pretension, a fact which set him, in Martin's estimation, on a plane far above Foskett. He worked for Finney as he never worked for Foskett, and consulted him about his reading: naturally Finney liked Martin and did all he could to help him. On several Sundays Martin went to lunch at the cottage and met Mrs Finney, a pleasant little woman whose beauty was somewhat marred by an expression of perpetual surprise. She was, like her husband, a slight and unimposing figure, and she shrank from the society of the college ladies with their continual "shop" conversation, partly from shyness and partly from boredom. When she was not looking after her baby she used to play the violin and read The Bookman and The Studio. For several hours every week she struggled with accounts and wondered how things would work out: she managed well, and somehow, miraculously, but persistently, they did work out.

She also liked Martin and he would come often to them. In a world that was hard and unsympathetic he was graciously different; he was essentially someone in whom interest could and should be taken, and this was what the Finneys needed. They saw and, after a time, understood his limitations, realising how his intellectual solitude was narrowing his outlook and how his heretical views about politics and life in general were left crude and immature because he dared not pronounce them openly and demand criticism. Criticism he lacked, and it was criticism they gave him, not the best perhaps, for the Finneys erred occasionally on the side of excessive culture and preciosity, but such criticism as would turn violence into strength and reveal possibilities of reason and feeling where he had seen before nothing but ignorance and sentimentality.

As Martin was destined for Oxford Finney thought it wise to introduce him to the writing of Belloc. "You'll get heaps out of him," he said. "Of course he goes to extremes, but his criticism of Socialism is the only sane one and worth a million of Mallock and Cox and that gang. And his arguments about religion aren't all nonsense. I don't agree with him" (Finney attended school chapel regularly and was a party Liberal), "but it's a point of view. And he can write."

Martin had never considered this outlook on the world before, and, though at times he was angry, he began to read Belloc eagerly, especially the verses. He had often heard his uncle talking about Belloc, but so far he had never troubled to investigate the matter further: now he was glad.

After lunch on Sunday afternoons he would walk with Finney on the downs, and sometimes they would talk about the Public Schools. At first Finney was reticent on their subject, but later he spoke with growing freedom and intimacy.

"It's odd how we get chucked into it," Finney used to say. "Everyone says teaching is the most important thing in the world, and they chatter away about training and so on: and yet when it comes to the point they allow their precious boys to be taught by men who are quite untrained for this profession. No master at a Public School has had any technical training or been taught how to see and shape things. He just clears out of the varsity with some debts and a little despair and then starts casually to do what is perhaps the most difficult and important thing in the world. And they don't get the pick of the varsities either: the standard keeps going down. The best men won't do it if they can keep out."

Finney could not, in the presence of a pupil, finish his indictment as he wished. Had it been possible he would have added: "The salaries are contemptible and are kept low by the bribe of a house: which in reality means that we have to pinch and scrape now because, if we are lucky, we may be able to make a thousand a year at forty if we don't overfeed our boys."

"And yet," suggested Martin, "don't you think it's rather refreshing to find something left to common-sense. Everything gets into the hands of faddists now. I once met an old lady who spent her life in teaching children how to play. Imagine the cheek of it! You put me on to Belloc and I think he's right about that sort of thing. We don't want too much of the bureaucratic specialist."

"I quite agree," said Finney. "That's the tragedy. Just where spontaneity really does matter, as in children's games, they go blundering in and knock imagination out of their victims, or give them someone else's, which is about the same thing. But just where training might be of some use, they do nothing. The superstition that a man can teach because he has taken a first in Classics at the varsity is childish. I don't claim to know very much now, but when I started my work I was hideously ignorant about the working of boys' minds: I never knew when I was being obvious or when I got beyond them. Of course one picks things up by experience, but it might be done so much better...."

"And then the narrowness," he rambled on, for he found a good audience in Martin. "You'll get a first in Mods, if you take the trouble, and by the time you're twenty or twenty-one you'll know all about Athenian law-courts and what the Greek is for a demurrer or a counter-claim, and you'll know all the hard words in Homer and be able to translate Cicero's jokes. You'll cram up a lot of variant readings for your special play and collect a nice set of texts with all the difficult passages marked. And when it's all over you'll thank God and imagine that you've done with it, only to find out that Greats is rather worse and means spotting the words for Egyptian bogwort in Herodotus and getting up the most meaningless bits of gibberish in Thucydides. It's the same all along. A schoolmaster wants to make some money, a don wants to make a name, so out comes a new reading, a new conjecture, a new edition and a thousand other straws of pedantry to be piled on the back of a poor old camel that collapsed years ago."

"It sounds pretty rotten," said Martin. "But I suppose at Oxford one can read and talk freely and follow up the things one likes?"

"Yes, you must do that. Don't get worried about Mods. Are you thinking of the Civil Service?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Well Mods won't matter much. So take up anything you really care for. That's the only thing in life worth doing, and it may be about the only time in your life when you're able to do it."

Of course Finney never spoke to Martin about school discipline, but it was not hard for Martin to see that he was very much depressed. His sufferings with the Fourth he might have expected: but that the Upper Sixth should rag childishly was a cruel blow. He was so keenly anxious to take an interest in his work and to make those hours of rapid translation valuable: but everything seemed to go against him.

He went through some Tacitus and Juvenal and Pindar at a great pace amid considerable amusement. For Tacitus gave facilities for journalese, Juvenal for obscenity, and Pindar for colossal bathos. In despair Finney turned to the sixth book of the Æneid, "Just to help your hexameters." They surely wouldn't rag that.

Yet trouble did break out. One Cartwright, a large, genial, athletic person who expected to get an exhibition at Cambridge for his games, was always to the fore when there seemed any opportunity of baiting Finney. To him fell the Daedalus passage at the beginning of the book: his rendering was picturesque and contained such gems as 'Intrepid aeronaut' and 'Bird-man.'

"That's not English and it isn't in the Latin," said Finney sharply.

"I don't know, sir," said Cartwright weightily. "'Præpetibus pennis ausus'—note of daring. Intrepid. Intrepid aeronaut. Why not, sir? And then 'levis super astitit'—note of hovering over. Bird-man. Why not, sir?"

Finney paused in silence. The Upper Sixth were tittering like infants of twelve, with the exception of Martin, who stared self-consciously at his desk, hating every moment and dreading what was to come. Fortunately Finney controlled his temper and said quickly:

"Don't be childish, Cartwright. Translate, Warren."

Warren was an intelligent youth and gifted with endless audacity. A week or two later they turned back to the first book (Finney couldn't tolerate their assault on the second half of Book VI.), and Warren had in his section the line:

"Succinctam pharetra et maculoso tegmine lyncis."

This he rendered: "With a check golf-skirt and a bag of clubs."

There was a wild roar of laughter and Finney went very red. Again he controlled himself and merely said: "Quite good. But you might keep your jokes till the end of the hour."

At last an event occurred which he could not overlook. Cartwright was translating Tacitus and he had a book open under his desk. The words flowed smoothly, with unwonted smoothness, for Cartwright was slow of wit. At the end of the chapter Finney remarked: "Are you aware, Cartwright, that you have reproduced the excellent translation by Messrs Church and Brobribb word for word?"

"Have I, sir?" answered Cartwright with astonishment.

"You have. And what is your explanation?"

Cartwright reflected.

"Only that great minds think alike," he said at last.

"I shall report you to the headmaster," shouted Finney above the roar of laughter.

Hitherto he had shrunk from informing Foskett of the way things went. He had been afraid that any such move might be taken as a proof of his own incompetence. Foskett might reasonably hold that it was a master's business to look after himself and that a man who couldn't deal with an Upper Sixth couldn't deal with anyone. And he had heard in the common-room that Foskett was remarkably fond of his prefects and would even back them against the masters, because he regarded them as more valuable allies in strengthening his own position with the rank and file of the school. After all, the masters were employees and far too deeply concerned with the problem of earning a living to do any harm to Foskett: they would be unwilling to resign, because, even if they found posts, it would mean loss of seniority at the new school. Distinctly he had the whip hand over them; but the prefects were harder to control and demanded more respect. So the masters had grown chary of reporting matters to the Head, and Finney had been warned that such a policy might lead to snubs. But on this occasion there was plainly nothing else to do.

Foskett spoke gravely to Cartwright for ten minutes on the subject of example, and matters went on as before. Cartwright was captain of football at the time.

So Finney continued to suffer, and because Finney suffered Martin inevitably suffered too. The ragging got on his nerves and he began to dread those long hours with their mirth and tragedy. At last he could bear it no longer, and he determined to speak to Cartwright and his allies and to point out how miserable they were making Finney: the man was a human being after all, he would say, and as an enemy he was not worth their efforts.

At first it seemed an easy thing to do, but when the time for action came he shrank from the task. It would be so strange, so opposed to all traditions. And Martin was distinctly one of the class of people who hate asking questions or worrying tradesmen or exacting their rights: he would rather have put up with a badly cut suit than protest to his tailor. He was not afraid of Cartwright, but he was undeniably afraid of asking Cartwright to be kind to Finney: it was just the kind of task which Martin most dreaded. He could imagine Cartwright's tolerant smile, the slight raising of the brows, the polite: 'Oh, certainly!' It would be painful, it would be intolerable!

But it would have to be done. One final jest, one final look of despair on Finney's face convinced him. So he nerved himself bravely for the crusade. Cartwright was, as he had foreseen, quite nice about it: he agreed that it was not good form to behave as the Fourth did, and Warren and the others assented. Martin had struck the right note when he used the phrase 'good form,' for no member of a Public School, young or old, can stand the imputation that he is not a gentleman. Martin was astonished at the ease and success of his task and was angry with himself for not having acted before. Henceforward Finney taught in peace and even made Cartwright begin to display a keen interest in Pindar. It was a thorough change and altered the whole aspect of Finney's work: he could forget the unspeakable Fourth-formers if he could really care about his work for the Sixth. His relief was obvious, and Martin, eagerly watching for every expression of it, felt justly grateful.

Finney could not guess the real cause of the new behaviour. For a moment he thought that perhaps his manner was becoming more imperious and that he had made definite progress in his efforts to acquire authority. But, on reflection, he had to abandon this flattering hypothesis, and he ultimately attributed the change to the growth of a collective conscience and the recognition that scholarship exams were dangerously near and that it might be as well to work seriously. That he could have made such a mistake showed that he still had much to learn about his pupils. But, from the pragmatic standpoint, his ignorance was for his own good: had he known that he was merely the recipient of charity, 'the something bitter' might have risen and destroyed the new-born happiness.