IV.
Meanwhile, Mr. Perrin up to the commencement of Mr. Moy-Thompson's speech, had been merely conscious that a period of waiting had, so to speak, “to be put in.” He was not aware, in the very least, that his eyes were causing both Sir Arthur Spalding and Mr. Moy-Thompson acute discomfort; he was not aware that boys were looking at him, watching him with eager curiosity and nudging one another, speculatively. He was not aware that Isabel's eyes were upon him, eyes of pity “because he looked so queer, as though he had a headache.”
He stood there, beside the small round-eyed boys of the First and Second Forms, staring in front of him, without moving. The first words of Moy-Thompson's speech fell upon his ears unconsciously. It did not matter what they said, it did not matter what they thought, the case at issue was between himself and Traill and he faced that with an irritated impatience at these tiresome hours that kept him from his eager realization.
He began slowly to understand the things that Moy-Thompson was saying. And suddenly it was as though he had, morally and mentally, taken himself, forcibly, out of one room into another—out of a room in which there was only Traill's figure, gray, shadowy, by the door, otherwise dark, obscured by a clinging mist... a dangerous place... into a place that had for its furniture tangible things, things like this speech that Moy-Thompson was making, things that had to do with no especial figure, but rather with a vast, intolerable condition, with a system.
What was he saying?... How dare he? Perrin moved impatiently in his place. He looked at the row of faces raised to the platform, the silly, stupid faces. That Mrs. Thompson in her thin black dress with her bony neck; that silly, cheerful Mrs. Comber in her bulging, flaming garments; that Lady Spalding, so stiff and sharp, as though she were of any importance to anyone—all of them listening to these things that Moy-Thompson was saying, and believing them, believing these... Lies!
Traill was almost forgotten as Perrin stepped a little forward from the wall in order that he might hear better. The sight of Moy-Thompson's face up there on the platform smiling, so complacent, patriarchal with that white beard wagging at the end of it, brought the blood to his head. He clenched his thin hands. What were the other men doing that they could stand there and listen to these lies? Why did they not step forward and tell the truth to all those stupid women and those fat governors, to the little man with the shining boots on the platform? They knew that these thing were lies. Had not this term been hell, had it not been slow torture for them all, had not that man with the white beard full knowledge of these lies that he was telling? What was his private quarrel with Traill as compared with this monstrous injustice? He was pale now, with a long red mark against the white of his cheek. He had stepped right away from the wall and the small boys of the First and Second Forms were watching him.
It came upon him suddenly, like a flash from the lightning of heaven, that it was for him to escape these things. He had suffered more than the others, he knew better than they the things that were done in this place! Something was going round in his head like a red-hot wire, but he remembered, even at that confused moment, that scene a few days before in the common room, when they had all been so nearly stirred to revolt by Birkland. What if he were to break the bonds?... What rot! what rot! what rot! He could have shouted it to the roof—“Lies! Lies! Lies!”
There was a little stir and rustle as Moy-Thompson finished his speech—ladies' dresses moved against the chairs, boots slipped along the floor—and then a burst of cheering and clapping. Perrin rubbed his hands against one another—they were hot and dry and something rather like a bobbin on a latch went up and down in his throat—his eyes were burning. He moved a little further from the wall and a little nearer to the central gangway between the blocks of boys.
And now Sir Arthur Spalding stood nervously behind the glittering copies of “Tennyson's Poems,” Sir Robert Ball's “Wonders of the Heavens,” “The Works of Spencer,” and other volumes of our admirable classics. They began with the bottom of the school, and a small fat boy with a crimson face, boots that creaked like a badly-oiled door and were shaped like Chinese boats, staggered up to the platform. A lady, prominent for her size and large picture hat moved eagerly in her chair, clapped vehemently with her white gloves and so proclaimed herself a mother.
Sir Arthur Spalding had every intention of making a pleasant speech to each prizewinner—“something that they could remember afterwards, you know”—and began to say something to the small and red-faced boy, but was startled by the sound of eager, anticipatory breathing close to his ear. Turning round, he discovered that three more small boys were waiting anxiously for their turn and that others were coming up the room. He therefore hurried along with “Here you are, my boy. Remember that prizes aren't everything in life—hope you 'll read it—delightful book.”