Tell England Part 13

"Hallo!" cried Banana-Skin. "Didn't you hear him say '_You're_ bluffing now'? That shows that _he_ was bluffing before."

"Oh, that's a bit _too_ clever!" objected Stanley. "Give the kid a chance."

There's nothing like sympathy for provoking misery and starting tears, and, as Stanley uttered that sentence, I decided that G.o.d had gone over to the prefects, and I would very much like to cry. To drive back the tears I called to my aid all the callousness and sulkiness which I possess. My face was the portrait of a sulky schoolboy as Stanley continued:

"Now, Ray, which door did you leave the dormitory by?"

"I didn't leave it."

"I say," suggested Kepple-G.o.ddard, "couldn't we send Bickerton to ask all the boys who sleep in the same dormitory whether they saw him leave it?"

"But they'd have been asleep, you ox!" put in Banana-Skin.

"Not necessarily."

"But it doesn't follow that, if they didn't see him leave the dormitory, he didn't do it," objected Banana-Skin, the self-const.i.tuted prosecuting counsel, who didn't want to see his case fall to the ground.

"Not quite. But if they _did_ see him, it proves him a liar and pretty well shows that he did."

"There's more sense in Kepple's idea than one would expect," gave Stanley as his decision. "Dash away, Bicky, and find out."

So Bickerton--or shall I call him Mercury, the messenger of the G.o.ds?--went, and I remained. It was no matter to me what news he brought back. I stood there, in the lions' den, and counted the cracks in the ceiling. I counted, also, the number of corners that the room possessed, and remembered how these same prefects had often (as when G.o.ds disport themselves) tried to make Doe and me stand in them for what they termed "unmitigated cheek"; how, giggling, we would fight them and kick them till they surrounded us and held us with our faces to the wall; and how we would call them all the rude names we could think of till they stuffed handkerchiefs in our mouths as a gag. One of their favourite pastimes had been to do Doe's hair, which they darkened with their wet brushes. It was usually a difficult business, as Doe would treat the whole operation in a disorderly spirit and declare that it tickled.

Presently Bickerton was heard running up the corridor (rather undignified for a prefect) and came bursting into the room.

"Now listen," said he, somewhat out of breath, and looking at a sheet of paper which he held in his hand. "Two boys saw Ray get up and leave the dormitory last night. They sleep on either side of him, and their names are Pennybet and Doe. The latter isn't sure whether he dreamt it."

"Well, Ray, what have you got to say to that?" asked Stanley.

"Nothing," I answered, "except that, if it's true, I must have been walking in my sleep. I did once, when I was a small boy."

Stanley ignored my feeble defence. He submitted to his colleagues that it was all his eye and Betty Martin; and the others nodded a.s.sent. Then the Chairman, recovering from his slight relapse into the vernacular of the Fourth Form, enunciated the following remarkable sentence:

"This inquest has, you will agree, been conducted by me in a strictly impartial and disinterested way, and the proceedings have been conspicuous for the absence of any bias, prejudice, or bigotry."

"Whew!" whistled several boys. Stanley let a grin hover in a well-bred way about his lips as he recommenced, the sentence being well-prepared and worth repeating:

"There has been no bias, prejudice, or bigotry. Well, gentlemen, is the corpse guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty, the little beast!"

I went out of that cruel room resolved that "beneath all the bludgeonings of chance my head should be b.l.o.o.d.y but unbowed." I was unconquerable! I walked along the corridor, blown out with injured virtue--a King among men. We a.s.sure you, our beloved subjects, we were Rupert Head-in-Air.

--2

I returned to Radley's cla.s.s-room and entered jauntily. All eyes turned and followed me as I walked to the master's desk. The excitement experienced by each boy seemed communicated to me. Radley feigned indifference.

"Well?" said he.

"I've come back, sir."

"Right. Go and sit down."

Scarcely had I reached my seat before the bell rang loudly for the Interval. The boys in their anxiety to hear the latest news flowed out hurriedly. I lingered apprehensively behind. At last I summoned up courage to venture into the corridor, where I found a group of boys awaiting me. Through these I broke at a rush and went and hid.

All that Interval lip tossed to lip such remarks as: "Ray did it."

"I say, have you heard Ray's the culprit?" "What'll be done to him?"

"Oh, the prefects have issued an edict that anyone who holds communication with him will get a Prefects' Whacking." "Ray did it."

"What? that kid? Little devil--it's good-bye to him, I suppose."

"What'll Radley say? He's one of his latest bally pets." "Ray did it."

After ten minutes the Second Period began. As our form went to Herr Reinhardt, the great Mr. Caesar, and he would certainly be late, I dawdled in my hiding-place, not having the courage to face the boys in the corridor. I waited till I conjectured that Mr. Caesar must be safe in his cla.s.s-room, and the boys in their desks. Then I entered his room, famous character as I was, and apologised for being late.

Mr. Caesar wrote my name in the Imposition Book, but, having raised his face and given one look at my swollen, tearful eyes, he deliberately crossed the name out again. And, indeed, throughout that period he so consistently refused to see that the boys were showing detestation of my degrading presence, and was so inexpressibly gentle in his manner towards me, that now I always think of this weak-eyed German master as a quiet and Christian gentleman.

When school-hours were over I went to a window, and there, leaning on the sill, thought how badly my war was going. Fillet was winning; he had won when he caned me for asking the number of the sum; he had won when he gave me the thousand lines; and now he was a.s.saulting in ma.s.s formation with the whole school as his allies. Ah, well! as Wellington said at Waterloo--it depended who could stand this pounding longest, gentlemen.

And, as Wellington did, I would charge at the end of the day. One splendid way of charging, I thought, would be to die immediately.

That would be most effective. How Fillet would p.r.i.c.k up his ears on Monday morning when he heard the Head Master say to the school a.s.sembled in the Great Hall: "Your prayers are asked for your schoolfellow, Rupert Ray, who is lying at the point of death." And on Tuesday, when he should say in a shaking voice: "Your schoolfellow, Ray, died early this morning. His pa.s.sing was beautiful; and may my last moments be like his." And then there would be the Dead March.

Having no one to talk to, I drew out from among the crumbs and rubbish in my pockets a letter that had arrived from my mother that morning. My young mother's love for me was always of the extravagant kind, and the words with which she closed this letter were:

"I do hope you are having a magnificent time and that everybody is fond of you and nice to you. I must stop now, so good-bye, my darling little son, and G.o.d bless you. With heaps of love from your ever devoted and affectionate Mother."

It was funny that I had not even noticed those words when I hurriedly read them in the morning. But now I found them strangely comforting, strangely satisfying.

A slap on the back awoke me from my reverie. It was Doe.

"Come along, Rupert. I know you didn't do it. Or, if you did, I don't care. We're twins."

"Go away. You'll get into a dreadful row if you're caught talking to me."

"I don't care. They won't think any the worse of me, whatever they do."

"Go away, I tell you. Or, if you don't, I shall have to, and I'm very comfortable here."

"I shan't. And if you try to escape me I'll follow you."

"Oh, why can't you go away?" I grumbled with something like a sob.

"Go away. Go away."

But Doe persisted. In full view of the prefects he chatted gaily to me. Once, as Radley pa.s.sed, he slipped his arm into mine. And when the master was out of hearing he asked:

"I s'pose Radley knows you're in Coventry?"

"Of course. Everybody does."

"Do you think he saw I had my arm in yours?"