But, if Mr. Cox’s resignation was taken calmly, Mr. Flaggon’s appointment continued to stir Chiltern to its lowest depths. Articles were disinterred from the back numbers of magazines, educational or otherwise, in which Mr. Flaggon had spoken slightingly of the public schools and public school methods; and the press was deplorable. The Liberal dailies hailed the appointment as the beginning of a new era and the death-blow to an antiquated tradition. Even a leading Conservative journal, which should have known better, described the election as a daring but interesting experiment, and proceeded to sketch an ideal curriculum, for the benefit of the new headmaster, in which Greek was abolished and its place taken by compulsory military drill. The Council blushed uneasily at finding itself suddenly in the van of progress, and began to say harsh things about its Chairman; and its Chairman was only partially comforted by an assurance from the distinguished person behind the scenes that they had chosen the best man in, “a man who will think before he acts and who will go far.” For to the Chairman the ideal headmaster was rather a man who would mark time decorously than an explorer of untrodden ways.
To the masters the suggestion that Chiltern needed reforming—“turning inside out,” they called it—was, to say the least, unpalatable. As practical men they despised the theorist; and, of all forms of theorist, the one that they most disliked was the educational enthusiast—the innovator, the impostor. Mr. Pounderly went about with a scared face and mysterious air, whispering “lamentable, lamentable” to his colleagues; and Mr. Woburn, the scientist, who affected metaphors and frequently mixed them, declared that, though the Classics were undoubtedly overdone at Chiltern, he hated the idea of a man who would always be trying experiments and pulling them up by the roots to see how they were shaping.
The idea of petitioning the Council against the appointment had been abandoned, partly on the advice of the moderates, but chiefly for lack of support from the juniors. For, on second thoughts, the juniors discovered that they did not want the new headmaster to be a nominee and creature of the veterans. The senior masters at Chiltern were famous for their longevity and for the tenacious way in which they clung to the posts of vantage; and, if change meant only a gradual shifting of the senior masters, there was something to be said in favour of change. But it was clearly understood that, if Mr. Flaggon attempted to drive his staff along new and unfamiliar ways, he would find them a most awkward and intractable team to handle.
Amid the babel of tongues there was one man who maintained what was, for him, an attitude of unusual reserve. This was Mr. Chowdler, the strong man of Chiltern. Mr. Chowdler owed his reputation for strength, not to any breadth of view or depth of sympathetic insight, but to a sublime unconsciousness of his own limitations. Narrow but concentrated, with an aggressive will and a brusque intolerance of all who differed from him, he was a fighter who loved fighting for its own sake and who triumphed through the sheer exhaustion of his enemies; and a Term in which he did not engage in at least one mortal combat was to him a blank Term. A tall man, with broad shoulders, round head, thin sandy hair, and full lips, he caught the eye in whatever company he might be, and his resonant voice arrested attention. At golfing centres, in the holidays, he was not always a very popular figure. But his confident manner impressed parents, and his was considered the house at Chiltern. People often wondered why he had never stood for headmasterships or sought a wider scope for the exercise of power. In reality he had never felt the need. He had so completely identified himself with Chiltern that it never even occurred to him to leave it; and his had for many years been the master mind that shaped the destinies of the school.
In saying this we are not forgetting the existence of Dr. Gussy. But Dr. Gussy, though he had been the titular chief for nearly a quarter of a century, had long ceased to be the ruling spirit. In vulgar phrase, he had allowed Mr. Chowdler to “run him,” and it was generally supposed to be weariness of bondage rather than of power which had induced him to resign before the completion of his twenty-fifth year of office. In appearance he was a complete contrast to his formidable lieutenant. Small and rather fragile, with silver-white hair and a refined, delicately moulded face that suggested Dresden china, he was the type of the old-fashioned scholar. Though there was nothing commanding in his personality it was none the less distinguished, and the thinness of a high-pitched, and sometimes almost squeaky, voice was atoned for by the perfection of his articulation. In his younger days he had taken a prominent place among the champions of the Oxford Movement, and, if he had not become a headmaster, he might have been notorious as a theologian; indeed, his commentary on the Epistle of St. Clement is admitted by all to be a remarkable work. Fathers of Chiltern boys loved to hear him read the lessons, and mothers frequently remarked, “What a lovely face!” But he was by nature too refined and sensitive to cope successfully with the robust methods of Mr. Chowdler, and, after struggling fitfully for some years, he had purchased comparative peace by an irritable submission. Mrs. Chowdler, an obtuse little woman who worshipped her husband and imagined that everybody at Chiltern shared her admiration, used to say that “Harry” was the headmaster’s better self. She had herself always been ready and willing to be a sister to Mrs. Gussy; but after a long series of pointed rebuffs she had abandoned the attempt, and the relations between the two families were official rather than cordial.
It was not likely that Mr. Chowdler would approve of the new appointment; indeed, he seldom approved of any arrangement that was not of his own making. But his attitude was one of amused banter rather than of fierce hostility, and he spoke with a good-natured smile of the “Empty Flaggon.” “Wait and see” was his advice. “You will find that the place and its traditions are too strong for the empty one. He may froth and he may fume, but he can’t hurt us. We are strong enough to assimilate a whole cellarful of Flaggons.”
These and similar remarks made it clear to the initiated that Mr. Chowdler proposed to run the new headmaster, as he had run his predecessor.
In the middle of July Mr. Flaggon paid his first visit to Chiltern. The position of a headmaster elect is a delicate one, and he wisely declined to be introduced formally to the school. If omens count for anything, the circumstances of this visit were inauspicious; for it coincided with a period of four-and-twenty hours of continuous rain. Mr. Flaggon carried away a general impression of gloom and dripping umbrellas; but one incident, trivial in itself, left a permanent record on his memory. During one of the brief pauses in the downpour, he was walking with Dr. Gussy across Colonus towards the Lanchester workshops, and, on the way, met three of the bigger boys who were sauntering slowly in the opposite direction. There was something about their gait and manner which, if not exactly insolent, at least suggested a complete absence of anything like awe in the presence of their headmaster. They gave a perfunctory salute; and, before they passed out of earshot, a voice, which made no attempt to lower itself, remarked:
“Is that the new Gus?”
“Looks like it,” replied a second voice, in the same devil-take-me-if-I-care tone, “unless it’s his shuvver.”