Gerald Eversley's Friendship: A Study in Real Life

by J. E. C. Welldon

And Gerald, as he locked his arm in his friend’s, could only say,

‘I felt as if no fellow had so much right to cheer as I.’

Before the sun went down, the cap of the school eleven was hanging on the antlers of the stag’s head in Harry’s room.

That was Harry Venniker’s triumph.

What was Gerald Eversley’s?

Gerald had not forgotten the hope expressed by Dr. Pearson that he might do something of which the school should be proud. He had no chance of distinguishing himself in games, and indeed he would, I think, have been sorry if he had been brought into any sort of rivalry with Harry Venniker. But it had been decided, mainly at Dr. Pearson’s instance, and not without much hesitation on the part of Mr. Eversley, that he should compete in the Michaelmas term at the famous college which there can be no harm in defining as Balliol. The desire of justifying the confidence reposed in him by Dr. Pearson, as well as his solitariness during the Easter term in the absence of Harry Venniker, led him to work with unwonted assiduity. It was not thought probable that he would win the scholarship, as he could compete for it again next year; but Mr. Brandiston hoped that, ‘if he did not dissipate his energies too much,’ he would do himself (and his house) credit in the examination. To nobody, except to Mr. Selby, did Gerald confide that he longed for success as the only return that he could make for the head master’s trust in his word; but Mr. Selby had always been kind to him, and invited him to his rooms, since the affair of the Sunday boxing, and Mr. Selby alone knew how great was the void created in his life by the illness and absence of Harry Venniker. Gerald had always been a multifarious reader; but he was weak in the technicalities of scholarship, and it was at Mr. Selby’s advice that in the six months preceding the examination at Balliol he devoted his time exclusively to classics. He was modest about himself, and looked upon his candidature as hopeless this year.

During the examination he found time to send brief reports of his papers to Mr. Selby. Mr. Selby formed the opinion that he was doing well, in spite of two curious blunders in composition. Mr. Eversley wrote him a letter, which he found awaiting him on his return to St. Anselm’s, saying (among other things) that he should feel the issue of the examination to be ‘a Providential guiding;’ that if Gerald were successful it would be well for him to go to Balliol, but if not, it would be the will of God that he should go elsewhere.

The school was assembled for prayers one Thursday morning. It was Dr. Pearson’s habit, if some extraordinary success was achieved by one of the boys, to celebrate it by granting a holiday. Generally the success which merited the holiday was known beforehand. But on this particular day the school was taken by surprise when Dr. Pearson, whose expression of face revealed his satisfaction, said after prayers, ‘I shall give a holiday to-morrow in honour of the success of one of our number in winning a Balliol scholarship; I need hardly say that I mean Eversley.’ A cheer burst from the crowded benches of the school at this announcement. It was loud and prolonged, for the holiday had not been expected. Gerald, who sat with his head buried in his hands, thought, as the cheering died away—it might be a mistaken idea, but he could not help thinking—that there was one voice even louder and more persistent than the rest, and that that voice was Harry Venniker’s.

To win a holiday for the school is to win the hearts of all its members. Gerald Eversley was overwhelmed with congratulations. Masters who had seldom or never spoken to him before stopped in the street to tell him that the school had cause to be proud of him. The boys, as he passed, remarked to each other that he was ‘the cleverest chap at St. Anselm’s.’ Mr. Brandiston’s usual reserve thawed under the genial feeling that, whatever Gerald’s faults were, he had justified his scholastic life by conferring distinction on his house. Somewhat different was the language of Mr. Selby, who invited him to tea that afternoon. Mr. Selby was full of joy. He knew so well how to ‘rejoice with them that rejoice,’ as well as to ‘weep with them that weep,’ and the joy he felt in Gerald’s success beamed from his countenance; but he said it always seemed to him that success, especially when it was as great as Gerald’s, was, if rightly considered, one of the most humbling things in the world, as it laid upon the successful person such a responsibility for being worthy of it after it was won as he had been before it, and of justifying it by his after-life.

Gerald had not thought of it so before, but Mr. Selby’s words were not forgotten.