Part 25 (1/2)
”Good Lord! Mansell, you are becoming literary,” laughed Gordon. ”How did you hear of Jekyll and Hyde?”
”Claremont has been reading the thing on Sunday mornings; not so bad for a fool like Stevenson. It rather reminded me of _The Doctor's Double_, by Nat Gould; only, of course, it is not half so good.”
”No, that is a fact,” said Lovelace. ”Nat Gould is the finest author alive. I read some stuff in a paper the other day about books being true to life. Well, you could not get anything more true than _The Double Event_; and race-horsing is the most important thing in life, too. I sent up the other day for six of his books; they ought to be here to-morrow.”
”Well, for G.o.d's sake, don't bring them in here,” said Gordon, ”there is enough mess as it is with _The Sportsmans_ of the last month trailing all over the place.”
”Oh, have some sense, man; you don't know what literature is.”
Gordon subsided. All his new theories of art collapsed very easily before the honest Philistinism of Lovelace and Mansell; for he was not quite sure of his own views himself. He loved poetry, because it seemed to express his own emotions so adequately. Byron's ”Tempest-anger, Tempest-mirth” was as balm to his rebellious soul. Rebellion was, in fact, at this time almost a religion with him. Only a few days back he had discovered Byron's sweeping confession of faith, ”I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments,” and he found it a most self-satisfying doctrine. That was what his own life should be. He would fight against these masters with their old-fas.h.i.+oned and puritanic notions; he would be the preacher of the new ideas. It was all very crude, very impossible, but at the back of this torrid violence lay an honest desire to better conditions, tempered, it must be owned, with an ambition to fill the middle of the stage himself.
In his imagination he became a second Byron. He saw, or thought he saw, the mistakes of the system under which he lived; and--without pausing to consider its merits--wished to sweep away the whole foundation into the sea, and to build upon some illusory basis a new heaven and new earth.
He had yet to read the essay in which Matthew Arnold says that ”Byron shattered, inevitably shattered himself against the black rock of British Philistinism.” He was at present full of hope. The Poetry of Revolt coloured his imagination to such a degree that he saw himself standing alone and triumphant amid the wreck of the world he had overthrown. He was always protesting that Swinburne's finest line was in the _Hymn to Proserpine_:
”_I neither kneel nor adore them, but standing look to the end._”
It raises a wonderful picture to a young imagination: Swinburne standing on a mountain, looking across the valley of years in which man fights feverishly for little things, in which nations rise to empire for a short while, in which const.i.tutions totter and fall, looking to where, far away behind the mountains, flickered the faint white streamers of the dawn. Oh, he was very young; very conceited too, no doubt; but is there anyone who, having lived longer, having seen many bright dreams go down, having been disillusioned, and having realised that he is but a particle in an immense machine, would not change places with Gordon, and see life once more roseflushed with impossible loyalties?
In its pa.s.sage school life seems very long; in retrospect it appears but a few hours. There is such a sameness about everything. A few incidents here and there stand out clear, but, as a whole, day gives place to day without differing much from those that have gone before it. We do not realise this till we can look back on them from a distance; but it is none the less true.
In the Sixth Gordon's scholastic career took the way of all other fugitive things. It had once given promise of leading somewhere, of resulting in something, but it wanted more than ordinary perseverance to overcome the atmosphere of the deep-rooted objection to work that overhung all the proceedings in the Sixth Form room. And that perseverance Gordon lamentably lacked.
The Lower Sixth was mainly under the supervision of Mr Finnemore; and it was a daily wonder to Gordon why a person so obviously unfitted should have been entrusted with so heavy a responsibility. Finally he came to the conclusion that the last headmaster had thought that the Sixth Form would probably make less fun and take fewer liberties with him than any other form, and that when the present Chief had come he had not had the heart to remove a school inst.i.tution. Mr Finnemore was an oldish man, getting on for sixty, and his hair was white. He had a long moustache, his clothes carried the odour of stale tobacco, his legs seemed hung on to his body by hooks that every day appeared less likely to maintain the weight attached to them. His face wore a self-depreciatory smile. He was most mercilessly ”ragged.”
The day when he took exams in big school will never be forgotten. Gordon was then in V.A. The Sixth, the Army cla.s.s and the Upper Fifth were all supposed to be preparing for some future paper. All three forms had, of course, nothing to do. The Chief was in London.
At four-fifteen Finnemore was observed to be moving in his strange way across the courts. With an almost suspicious quietness the oak desks were filled.
”What are you doing to-day, Lane?” Finnemore asked the head of the school.
”I believe, sir, we are supposed to be preparing something.”
”Ah, excellent; excellent, a very good opportunity for putting in some good, hard work. Excellent! Excellent!”
For about three minutes there was peace. Then Ferguson lethargically arose. He strolled up the steps to the dais, and leaning against the organ loft began to speak:
”Gentlemen, as not only the Sixth Form, but also the Army cla.s.s and Upper Fifth, are gathered here this afternoon with no very ostensible reason for work, I suggest that we should hold, on a small scale, a Bacchic festival. This will, of course, be not only entertaining but also instructive. 'Life consists in knowing where to stop, and going a little further,' once said H.H. Monro. Let us follow his advice--and that of the Greeks. First, let us shove the desks against the wall and make ready for the dance.”
It had all been prepared beforehand. In a few minutes several hundred books had been dropped, several ink-pots lay smashed on the floor. There was a noise of furious thunder, and at last all the desks somehow got shoved against the wall.
Finnemore was ”magnificently unprepared.” He lay back nervously in his chair, fingering his moustache.
”This must now cease,” he said.
”No, really, sir” protested Ferguson; ”everything is all right. Mr Carter, will you oblige us by playing the piano. I myself will conduct.”
The floor of the big school is made of exquisitely polished oak, and is one of the glories of Fernhurst. It was admirably suited for the dance which within five minutes was in progress. It was a n.o.ble affair.
Finnemore sat back in his chair powerless, impotent; Carter hammered out false notes on a long-suffering piano. Ferguson beat time at the top of the dais, with a pen gently waving between his fingers, as gracefully as the pierrots of Aubrey Beardsley play with feathers. Down below heavy feet pretended to dance to an impossible tune. Someone began a song, others followed suit, and before long the austere sanct.i.ty of the room was violated by the flat melodies of _Hitchy-Koo_. It was indeed an act of vandalism. But the rioters had forgotten that they were distinctly audible from without. In the Chief's absence they had thought a row out of the question.
Unfortunately, however, ”the Bull's” cla.s.s-room was only a few yards off. When first he heard the strains of revelling borne upwards he thought it must be the choir practising for the Christmas concert. But it did not take long for him to appreciate that such a supposition was out of the question. The noise was deafening. He could hardly hear himself talk; investigation must be made. He got up and walked out into the courts, made his way to the big school, and opening the door revealed the scene that has just been described. For a second or so he stood speechless. He felt much as Moses might have felt, if he had seen a tribe of Gentiles invading the Holy of Holies. Then his voice rang out:
”What is the meaning of this unseemly disturbance?”