Later, at the large school-house over the way, he found himself exposed to another ordeal, one that he decided in his small brain to be nothing more nor less than a studied insult, and this was an examination in spelling, reading, and arithmetic, from which he emerged with a self-abasement equalled by indignation against the young assistant teacher who had had to put questions to him. Thanks to the care that he had always taken to evade education offered by the State, he found himself placed in a class at the end of the large school-room amongst boys who were all some years his junior; found himself, too, failing to jump difficulties which they cleared with comparative ease, and becoming in consequence the recipient of much satire. After a few weeks of consideration, he decided one morning, as he put his head under the shower-tap in the washing-room at Collingwood—he had begun to conquer his disinclination for cleanliness—that he would show everybody he was not of the stuff that butts were made; that he would apply himself seriously to the acquirement of knowledge. This fact being made apparent, the young assistant found another target for his shafts of satire, and when one afternoon the question of 7 times 7 minus 9 was put to Bobbie, and the class prepared to be exceedingly diverted at Bobbie’s answer and was so diverted, not recognizing the fact that his answer proved absolutely correct, then the class had to be admonished for inappropriate hilarity, in terms that made Bobbie’s little head swell with content. Being advanced to the next of the three classes in the large school-room, he had maps to wrestle with, and felt for a time a grievance against his country because it had possessions in so many quarters of the globe.
Late afternoon brought relief in the shape of drill on the large square space at the end of all the cottages and near to meadows; drill conducted by an upright ex-army man in braided uniform, who doubled the parts of a stern disciplinarian of a drill-master, and a genial distributor of goods as a storekeeper. On parade the drill-master was like a commander-in-chief (but less hampered than that official by Secretaries of State for War and people); there came exercise with Indian clubs to the music of a band of boys in uniform of blue with scarlet facings, so that at a distance you might think they belonged to the service, and who were sometimes so proud of their ability that they could scarcely play the brass instruments; real military drill with small wooden rifles, and once the awkwardness of the first few drillings passed, and once you became used to the drillmaster’s voice, it was capital sport, because you had only to give imagination rein and you were a grown-up lifeguardsman with an admirable chest, chin well up, six feet two inches in your boots, and all the ladies who lived downstairs in West End houses hard at work worshipping you. Later, at five o’clock (the time being late autumn), you met the drill-sergeant again in the gymnasium, which was the swimming bath boarded over, and there you had the rarest games with parallel bars and the vaulting horse and horizontal bars, and goodness alone knew what. When all this had gone on for a few months Bobbie found to his great satisfaction that in stretching out his right arm and then bringing his fist back towards the shoulder there appeared above the elbow a distinct, palpable, unmistakable, not to be denied, sign of thick muscle. Saying his prayers that night on the reminder of the monitor of his room, he omitted the formula that he had been obliged to learn, and substituted special thanks for this development, asking that he might become a strong man, so that he could knock anybody down whenever that act should appear appropriate and desirable.
Thus Robert Lancaster grew.
CHAPTER VI.
The days in general resembled each other at the Cottage Homes, but there were exceptions. For instance, Bank Holidays. On the first Bank Holiday after the winter, came to the homes long, awkward young men who had been boys, caught years since in the streets of Shoreditch, and transferred (as Bobbie had been transferred) and educated and trained, and who being now plutocrats in the enjoyment of twenty-five shillings a week, or bandsmen capable of blowing agreeable airs in military bands, or wide-trousered sailors with a roll in their walk and brown open throats; these came to re-visit the place that had made men of them, and to salute respectfully admiring foster-parents, saying, Yes, thank you, mother, I’m getting along middling, thanks, mustn’t grumble, I s’pose, and how are you, and how’s father? And I’ve took the liberty, mother, which I trust you’ll excuse, of bringing you my photograph, which I hope you’ll accept with my best compliments. The foster-mother having been duly ecstatic over the photograph, (“Your nose has come out so well, boy, that’s what I like about it”), there would be tea in the dining-room with some of the present boarders standing around open-eyed and open-mouthed, whilst the young man told mother amusing anecdotes of his present occupation, and fenced mother’s delicate inquiries concerning the whereabouts of his heart. It was a proud young man who, the boys being ordered from the room, could bring from the breast pocket of his coat a cabinet-sized picture of an elegant young woman standing by a rustic gate with an open book in her hand (this to show that in her, literature had a friend) and an unconscious but slightly anxious look on her face as who should say, “Oh dear, dear, dear, I do hope nobody is photographing me,” and to announce that this was his own, his very own young lady. The cottage having been visited, there were nurses to call upon in the detached houses in fields beyond the gate, and the masters of the school, and (with great respect) the superintendent and his wife in their house, and the doorkeeper and his wife in their cottage (“My word, I shall never forget the day I come here first”), and finally to light cigars in full view of the admiring boys and depart. Also came friends of the boys or their more or less unfortunate parents; and these, the way from Hoxton being long and places of refreshment by the way numerous, sometimes arrived at the gates in such extravagant spirits that, to the bitter sorrow of some expectant youngster within, they could not be admitted. Bobbie on a certain Easter Monday was feeling sick at the throat upon seeing other boys with friends around them, when to him were announced two ladies—Mrs. Bell and Miss Trixie Bell!
“Hello, Bobbie,” cried Mrs. Bell, “don’t you look a treat!”
Mrs. Bell was costumed in a manner which reflected credit not only upon herself and her dressmaker, but also in some way upon the boarder at the Cottage Homes whom she was visiting. Beneath a heavy fur-bordered cloak Bobbie could not help noting that Mrs. Bell was in blue satin; a broad band sparkling with beads went around her ample waist. Her face, it is true, had become scarlet from the exercise of walking, but this only lent a further variety of colour to her general appearance; her black bonnet escaped the charge of monotony by the presence of deftly placed yellow roses in full bloom. Her daughter, growing and already several years older in manner than her mother, was more demurely apparelled, and as she stood near her mother she drew careful diagrams on the gravel with the end of her parasol. Glancing at her, it occurred to Bobbie for the first time that Trixie Bell would become rather a fine young woman when Time had lent further aid; she was neatly gloved, her shoes were beyond criticism. One of the duties that had come with years was, it appeared, to pilot her mother, and to warn her when natural exuberance caused that good woman to approach those rocks which, in speech, cause disaster.
“I never saw such a difference in all my life,” declared Mrs. Bell. “Why, you ’aven’t been here a couple of years and your hands are as clean as clean.”
“How are you getting on, ma’am?” he asked civilly. “Still in that little place in Pimlico Walk?”
“Me and mother,” interposed Miss Bell, “think of taking a business now in the Kingsland Road.”