The Record of Nicholas Freydon / An Autobiography

by A. J. Dawson

We walked home from the Roehampton Gate, and in some respects I was no longer quite a child when I climbed into bed that night.

III

In my eyes, at all events, there was a kind of a partnership between my father and myself from this time onward. Before, there had been three groups in my scheme of things: upon the one hand, Amelia (or her successor) and myself, with, latterly, some of the people of the Putney Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen; in another and quite separate compartment, my father; and, finally, the rest of the world. Gradually, now, I came to see things rather in this wise: upon the one hand, my father and myself, with, perhaps, a few other folk as satellites; and, on the other hand, the rest of the world.

And at this early stage I began to regard the world--every one outside our own small camp--in an antagonistic light, as a hostile force, as the enemy. Life was a battle in which the odds were fearfully uneven; for it was my father and myself against the world. Needless to say, I did not put the matter to myself in those words; but at this precise period I am well assured that I acquired this attitude of mind. It dated from the admittance into partnership with my father, which was signalised by the walk and talk among the bracken in Richmond Park.

I ought to say that I had always had a great admiration for my father. He seemed to me clearly superior in a thousand ways to other men. But never before the Richmond episode had there been personal sympathy, nor yet any loyal feeling of fellowship, mingled with this admiration.

I remember very distinctly the pride I felt in my father's personal appearance. He was not a dandy, I think; but there was a certain quiet nicety and delicacy about his dress and manner which impressed me greatly. The hair about his ears and temples was silvery grey; one of the marks of his superiority, in my eyes. He always raised his hat in leaving a shop in which a woman served; his manner of accepting or tendering an apology among strangers was very grand indeed. In saluting men in the street, he had a spacious way of raising his malacca stick which, to this day, would charm me, were it possible to see such a gesture in these rushing times. The photograph before me as I write proves that my father was a handsome man, but it does not show the air of distinction which I am assured was his. And, let me record here the fact that, whatever might be thought of the wisdom or otherwise of his views or actions, I never once knew him to be guilty of an act of vulgar discourtesy, nor of anything remotely resembling meanness.

In these days it is safe to say that the very poorest toiler's child has more of schooling than I had, and, doubtless, a superior sort of schooling. I spent rather less than a year and a half at the Putney Academy, and that was the beginning and the end of my schooling. Before being introduced to the Academy, I was a fairly keen reader; and that remained. At the Academy I was obliged to write in a copy-book, and to commit to memory sundry valueless dates. There may have been other acquisitions (irrespective of ear-tweakings and various cuts from a vicious little cane), but I have no recollection of them; and, to this day, the simplest exercises of everyday figuring baffle me the moment I take a pencil in my hand. If I cannot arrive at solution 'in my head' I am done, and many a minor monetary loss have I suffered in consequence.

I trust I am justified in believing that to-day there are no such schools left in England as that Academy for the Sons of Gentlemen, in Putney. As a training establishment it was more suitable, I think, for the sons of parrots or rabbits. I never even learned to handle a cricket bat or ball there. Neither, I think, did any of my contemporaries in that futile place. The headmaster and proprietor was a harassed and disappointed man, who exhausted whatever energies he possessed in interviewing parents and keeping up appearances. His one underpaid usher was a young man of whom I remember little, beyond his habit of pulling my ears in class, and the astoundingly rich crop of pimples on his face, which he seemed to be always cultivating with applications of cotton-wool, plaster, and nasty stuff from a flat white jar. His mind, I verily believe, was as innocent of thought as a cabbage. When sent to play outdoor games with us, and instruct us in them, he always reclined on the grass, or sat on a gate, reading the Family Herald, or a journal in whose title the word 'Society' figured; except on those rare occasions when his employer came our way for a few moments. Then, cramming his book into his pocket, the poor pimply chap would plunge half hysterically into our moody ranks (forgetful probably of what we were supposed to be playing) with muttered cries of: 'Now then, boys! Put your heart into it!' and the like. 'Put your heart into it!' indeed! Poor fellow; he probably was paid something less than a farm labourer's wage, and earned considerably less than that.

No, any education which I received in boyhood must have come to me from my father; and that entirely without any set form of instruction, but merely from listening to his talk, and asking him questions. Also, the books I read were his property; and I do not recall any trash among them. It was the easiest thing in the world to evade the 'home-work' set me by the usher, and I consistently did so. As a rule, he was none the wiser, and when he did detect me, the results rarely went beyond perfunctory ear-pulling; a cheap price for free evenings, I thought. The usher was frankly sick of us all, and of his employment, too; and I do not wonder at it, seeing that he was no more equipped for his work than for administering a state. He never had been trained to discharge any function in life whatever. How then could he be expected to know how to train us?

Withal, I somehow did acquire a little knowledge, and the rudiments of some definite tastes and inclinations, during this period. Recently, in London, I have once or twice endeavoured to probe the minds of County Council schoolboys of a similar age, with a view to comparing the sum of their knowledge with my own in those Putney days. And, curious though it seems, it does certainly appear to me that the comparison was never to the advantage of the modern boy; though I am assured he must enjoy the benefits of some kind of thought-out educational system. I certainly did not. These things partake of the nature of mysteries.