She did him less than justice. The average hoy came to school knowing English; Sam had had to learn it, and here was proof, in a prize won against the whole school and not merely against a form, that he had learned his lesson well.
Her disparagement depressed him. He had not reached, and with a mother like Anne he could not at his age reach, the healthy younger generation’s contempt for the opinions of its elders. He felt weakened in his belief in the social and economical value of a decent accent and grew careless in preserving it. His Gibbon lay upon his shelf unread, an empty glory, and, in the event, his prize was to lead to a calamity. It was to lead, indirectly, to Tom Branstone’s death.
Sam found himself, after the holidays, moved up to the Transitus, the last boy to be moved there from the Fifth. He was not sure that it pleased him. Left in the Fifth he might have been a Triton among the minnows: in the Transitus he was incurably a minnow. But he discovered there an atmosphere to which he might have responded better than he did. Discipline was slacker; one had reached the ante-room to the Sixth and was assumed to be serious; one had the privilege of a form-room which was open in the lunch-hour so that one had not to wait with smaller fry in the corridors; and, above all, the form-master was a gentleman as well as a scholar.
He was not blind to these advantages, but he did not, somehow, “come on” with his classics. The terrible facility of Bull and Adams was a constant discouragement: mere perseverance was outvied by natural ability and dragged its leaden weight behind. He knew himself incapable of shining in this company, and gave up a losing fight the more readily because the half-term brought a new diversion, and a chance to coruscate.
He was cast, as winner of the reading prize, for the Christmas play. He, Sam Branstone, was to act Shylock at the Conversazione, whilst Lance Travers was given Bassanio—salt on the still bleeding wound of his defeat. Greek Tragedy interested Sam no more. He saw Irving’s Shylock from the gallery of the Theatre Royal, and, for comparative purposes, Benson’s. He haunted Cheetham Hill, observing Jewish “types.” He came to the first rehearsal, like any other novice, knowing every line of his part—and had painfully to unlearn and relearn under the direction of the brisk little mathematics master who took the play-in hand.
Anne screened her pride in this distinction. Play-acting was, in any case, questionable, too newly come to respectable estate to be accepted unreservedly. But, in secret, she determined that she would be one of Sam’s audience and Tom another.
Parents were invited to the Conversazione—that was what conversaziones were for—but Anne and Tom had never accepted the invitation before. It implied evening dress.
She decided that she could “manage” with her Sunday dress and two yards of lace; but Tom, too, must be there, and Tom must not shame Sam. She thought she saw a way.
“Nay, nay,” said Tom, “I couldn’t do it, lass. I’d never dare.”
“You should have thought of that before you became Sam’s father,” she replied. “I’m going to see him and I’ll none go alone. You’re coming with me. I reckon Mr. O’Rourke will be in to-night as usual.”