An “Exeat” now and then diversified the course of the term, and these I spent with my Aunt Eleanor who had married Mr. Thomas Hare, famous for his book on the Representation of Minorities. He was a great friend of John Stuart Mill, whom Aunt Eleanor, for some reason of her own, always called “Mr. Mills.” They lived in a house near Surbiton which had a tower in it, on the top floor of which was Uncle Hare’s laboratory, chemistry being a hobby of his, and he made oxygen in glass retorts, and put snippets of potassium to scurry, flaring and self-lit, on the surface of a basin of water.... On the 5th of November every year I was asked to a children’s party, given by Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck, at the White Lodge, Richmond Park, and there was an immense tea followed by fireworks in the garden. There we were given squibs and told to be sure to throw them away as soon as they burned low, before the explosion came at the end, and on one of these occasions the Duke of Teck wanting a light for his cigar told me to give him my squib, for he had no matches. I told him that it was already burning low, but he said “Wass?” rather alarmingly, and so I handed it to him. He had just applied the burning end of it to his cigar when the explosion came, and his face and hair were covered with sparks, and he danced about, and said sonorous things in German, and I gathered that he was vexed....
The minds of children as they grow have those diseases incident to childhood much as their bodies have. I had had my measles of sentimentality, and having got over that I developed during this year a kind of whooping-cough of lying. I used to invent and repeat extraordinary experiences, which had their root in fact, but were embellished by my imagination to scenes of unparalleled magnificence. For instance, the family spent that summer holidays at Etretat, crossing from Southampton to Havre, and I came back with Arthur who was going to Eton, a day late for the assembling of Temple Grove. The crossing was an extremely rough one; all night the water broke over the decks heavy and solid, and certainly some unfortunate passenger came into the cabin drenched through. All next day as I travelled to Temple Grove my imagination worked on these promising materials, and I told my admiring schoolfellows that we had barely escaped shipwreck. The waves, which certainly did deluge the decks, I represented as having poured in torrents down the funnels, extinguishing the furnaces, so that we had to stop till the fires were relit, while out of the passenger who came down drenched into the cabin I constructed a Frenchman who was supposed to have said to me in broken English, “Ze water is not coming over in bucketfuls it is coming over in shipfuls.” So vividly did I imagine this, that before long I really half believed it. Again the next winter holidays were marked by a heavy snowfall in Cornwall succeeded by a partial thaw and a hard frost. In consequence the horses had to be roughed, and it is certainly a fact that the carriage which was bringing my father home one evening slewed so violently that, according to his quite authentic description, he looked out of the window, and saw instead of the hedge-rows the steep glazed road in front of him. I seized hungrily on that incident, and on returning to school said that we had enjoyed delightful sledging in the holidays, over roads and lakes, adding the further embellishment that I personally drove the horses.... There were more of these fictions which I cannot now remember, all of which had some exiguous foundation of fact, and great was my horror when an implacable enemy handed me one morning a scrap of paper, in the manner of an ultimatum headed:
“Benson’s Lies”
and there below, neatly summarized were all these stories which I thought had been listened to with such respectful envy. The implacable enemy added darkly that “they” (whoever “they” might be) were considering what they were going to do about it all. I suppose consternation was graven on me, for he stonily added, “Yes, you may well turn pale,” and I pictured (my imagination again rioting off) this damning text being handed to Waterfield, who would send it to my father. What was the public upshot, I cannot remember, but by aid of that terrifying medicine I made a marvellously brisk recovery from that particular disease.
Some time during that first year at school, there occurred a scene which I still look back on as among the most awful I have ever witnessed. Two boys, one high in the school, a merry handsome creature, the other quite a small boy, suddenly disappeared. They were in their places at breakfast, but during breakfast were sent for by Waterfield and at school that morning their places were empty. They did not appear at dinner, they did not appear at tea, and that night in the next dormitory their beds were vacant. Jane said they were not ill, and forbade any further questions, and curious whisperings went about, of which I could not grasp the import. Next morning there came a sudden order that all the school should be assembled, and we crowded into the big schoolroom. Presently Waterfield entered with his cap and gown on, followed by the two missing boys. He took his place at his desk, and motioned them to stand out in the middle of the room. There was a long silence.
Then Waterfield began to speak in a low voice that grew gradually louder. He told us all to look at them, which we did. He then told us that they had brought utter ruin and disgrace on themselves, that no public school would receive them, and that they had broken their parents’ hearts. They were not going to stop an hour longer amongst us, for their presence was filthy and contaminating. They were publicly expelled and would now go back to the homes on which they had brought disgrace.
He then told us all to go out, and was left with those two, and I wondered, limp with terror, whether he was going to kill them, and what on earth it was that they had done. And if I was limp then, you may judge what was my condition, when presently the school sergeant who brought summonses from Waterfield told me that he wished to see me.... Indeed that imaginative habit which had made up so many glorious adventures for myself on slender grounds was a poor friend at that moment, for as I went to the study, it vividly suggested to me that I too, for some unintelligible reason, would be despatched to Cornwall, a ruined and disgraced boy.
I tapped at the door, tapped again without receiving any answer and entered. Waterfield was sitting at his table and he was crying. He indicated to me that I was to sit down, which I did. Then he blew his nose with an awful explosion of sound, and came with his rocking walk across to the chimney-piece.
“I want to ask you a question,” he said. “Do you understand why those two boys were sent away?”