II
One day he realised that he was a failure. He had had some disciplinary trouble with the fifth form and had woefully lost his temper. There had followed a mild sort of scene; within an hour it had been noised all over the school, so that he knew what the boys and Masters were thinking of when they looked at him. It was then that the revelation of failure came upon him.
But, worst of all, there grew in him wild and ungovernable hates. He hated the Head, he hated Pritchard, he hated Smallwood, he hated, most intensely of all, perhaps, Burton. Burton was too familiar. Not that Speed disliked familiarity; it was rather that in Burton's familiarity he always diagnosed contempt. He wished Burton would leave. He was getting too old.
They had a stupid little row about some trivial affair of house discipline. Speed had found some Juniors playing hockey along the long basement corridor. True that they were using only tennis balls; nevertheless it seemed to Speed the sort of thing that had to be stopped. He was not aware that "basement hockey" was a time-honoured custom of Lavery's, and that occasional broken panes of glass were paid for by means of a "whip round." If he had known that he would have made no interference, for he was anxious not to make enemies. But it seemed to him that this extempore hockey-playing was a mere breach of ordinary discipline; accordingly he forbade it and gave a slight punishment to the participators.
Back in his room there came to him within a little while, Burton, eagerly solicitous about something or other.
"Well, what is it, Burton?" The mere sight of the shambling old fellow enraged Speed now.
"If you'll excuse the libutty, sir. I've come on be'alf of a few of the Juniors you spoke to about the basement 'ockey, sir."
"I don't see what business it is of yours, Burton."
"No, sir, it ain't any business of mine, that's true, but I thought perhaps you'd listen to me. In fact, I thought maybe you didn't know that it was an old 'ouse custom, sir, durin' the 'ockey term. I bin at Millstead fifty-one year come next July, sir, an' I never remember an 'ockey term without it, sir. Old Mr. Hardacre used to allow it, an' so did Mr. Lavery 'imself. In fact, some evenings, sir, Mr. Lavery used to come down an' watch it, sir."
Speed went quite white with anger. He was furiously annoyed with himself for having again trod on one of these dangerous places; he was also furious with Burton for presuming to tell him his business. Also, a slight scuffle outside the door of the room suggested to him that Burton was a hired emissary of the Juniors, and that the latter were eavesdropping at that very moment. He could not give way.
"I don't know why you think I should be so interested in the habits of my predecessors, Burton," he said, with carefully controlled voice. "I'm sure it doesn't matter to me in the least what Hardacre and Lavery used to do. I'm housemaster at present, and if I say there must be no more basement hockey then there must be no more. That's plain, isn't it?"
"Well, sir, I was only warning you—"
"Thanks, I don't require warning. You take too much on yourself, Burton."
The old man went suddenly red. Speed was not prepared for the suddenness of it. Burton exclaimed, hardly coherent in the midst of his indignation: "That's the first time I've bin spoke to like that by a housemaster of Lavery's! Fifty years I've bin 'ere an' neither Mr. Hardacre nor Mr. Lavery ever insulted me to my face! They were gentlemen, they were!"
"Get out!" said Speed, rising from his chair quickly. "Get out of here! You're damnably impertinent! Get out!"
He approached Burton and Burton did not move. He struck Burton very lightly on the shoulder. The old man stumbled against the side of the table and then fell heavily on to the floor. Speed was passionately frightened. He wondered for the moment if Burton were dead. Then Burton began to groan. Simultaneously the door opened and a party of Juniors entered, ostensibly to make some enquiry or other, but really, as Speed could see, to find out what was happening.
"What d'you want?" said Speed, turning on them. "I didn't tell you to come in. Why didn't you knock?"
They had the answer ready. "We did knock, sir, and then we heard a noise as if somebody had fallen down and we thought you might be ill, sir."
Burton by this time had picked himself up and was shambling out of the room, rather lame in one leg.
The days that followed were not easy ones for Speed. He knew he had been wrong. He ought never to have touched Burton. People were saying "Fancy hitting an old man over sixty!" Burton had told everybody about it. The Common-Room knew of it. The school doctor knew of it, because Burton had been up to the Sick-room to have a bruise on his leg attended. Helen knew of it, and Helen rather obviously sided with Burton.
"You shouldn't have hit an old man," she said.
"I know I shouldn't," replied Speed. "I lost my temper. But can't you see the provocation I had? Am I to put up with a man's impertinence merely because he's old?"
"You're getting hard, Kenneth. You used to be kind to people, but you're not kind now. You're never kind now."
In his own heart he had to admit that it was true. He had given up being kind. He was hard, ruthless, unmerciful, and God knew why, perhaps. Yet it was all outside, he hoped. Surely he was not hard through and through; surely the old Speed who was kind and gentle and whom everybody liked, surely this old self of his was still there, underneath the hardness that had come upon him lately!
He said bitterly: "Yes, I'm getting hard, Helen. It's true. And I don't know the reason."
She supplied the answer instantly. "It's because of me," she said quietly. "I'm making you hard. I'm no good for you. You ought to have married somebody else."
"No, no!" he protested, vehemently. Then the old routine of argument, protest, persuasion, and reconciliation took place again.