Roland Whately: A Novel

by Alec Waugh

But the headmaster was not very helpful. He was kind and sympathetic. He spoke of the moral significance of the situation and the eventual service that this trouble might prove to have been. He wished Roland the very best of luck. He didn’t agree with Mr. Whately about the impossibility of Oxford, but he appreciated Mr. Whately’s point of view. After all, Mr. Whately knew his own son better than he did. Was there anything more Mr. Whately would wish to ask him? He would be always very glad to give Mr. Whately any advice or help that lay within him. He hoped Mr. Whately would have a pleasant journey back to town.

“Dorset’s at its best in June,” he said, as he escorted Mr. Whately to the door.

There was an hour to put in before the departure of the London train, and Roland and his father walked down to the cricket field. They sat on the grass in the shade of the trees that cluster round the pavilion, and watched the lazy progress of the various games that were scattered round the large high-walled ground. It was a pretty sight—the green fields, the white flannels, the mild sunshine of early summer. It was bitter to Mr. Whately that he would never again see Fernhurst. For that was what Roland’s trouble meant to him. And the reflection saddened his last hour with his son.

When Roland had left him at the station he walked up and down the platform in the grip of a deep melancholy. On such an afternoon, five years ago, he had seen Fernhurst for the first time. He had brought Roland down to try for a scholarship and they had stayed for three days together at the Eversham Hotel. Fernhurst had been full of promise for them then. He had not been to a public school himself. When he was a boy the public school system had indeed hardly begun to impose its autocracy on the lower middle classes, and he had always felt himself at a disadvantage because he had been educated at Burstock Grammar School. He had been desperately anxious for Roland to make a success of Fernhurst. He had looked forward to the day when his son would be an important figure in the school, and when he himself would become important as Whately’s father. How proud he would feel when he would walk down to the field in the company of a double-first. He would come down to “commem” and give a luncheon party at the Eversham Hotel, and the masters would come and speak to him and congratulate him on his son’s performance: “A wonderful game of his last week against Tonwich.” And during the last eighteen months it had indeed seemed that these dreams were to be realized. Roland had his colors at football, he was in the Sixth, a certainty for his seconds at cricket: after the summer he would be a prefect and captain of games in the house. And now it was all over. As far as he was concerned, Fernhurst was finished. His life would be empty now without the letter every Monday morning telling of Roland’s place in form, of his scores during the week, and all the latest news of a vivid communal life. That was over. And as Mr. Whately mounted the train, closed the door and sat back against the carriage, he felt as though he were undergoing an operation; a part of his being was being wrenched from him.

Roland felt none of this despondency. After saying good-by to his father he walked gayly up the Eversham Road. The brown stone of the Abbey tower was turning to gold in the late sunlight, a cool wind was blowing, the sky was blue. What did this trouble matter to him? Had he not strength and faith and time in plenty to repair it? He had wearied of school, he reminded himself. He had felt caged this last year; he had wanted freedom; he had outgrown the narrow discipline of the field and classroom. Next term he would be a man and not a schoolboy. He flung back his shoulders as though he were ridding them of a burden.

There was still three-quarters of an hour to put in before lock-up, and he walked up past the big school towards the hill. He thought he would like to tell Brewster what had happened. He found him in his study, and with him an old boy, Gerald Marston, who had been playing against the school that afternoon.

“Hullo!” he said. “So here’s the criminal. I’ve just been hearing all about you. Come along and sit down.”

Roland was flattered at Marston’s interest in his escapade. He had hardly known him at all when he had been at Fernhurst. Marston had been in another house, was two years his senior, and, in addition, a double first. Probably it was the first time they had even spoken to each other.

“Oh, yes, we’ve been having an exciting time,” laughed Roland.

“And what’s going to be the end of it?”