Tell England Part 17

If you're sent to Coventry, go straight to bed there. Oh, you're a subtle pair, aren't you?"

We were both too shy to answer.

"Well, Ray, I've come to tell you to sleep with an easy mind. The Head Master is satisfied that, if you were conducting operations in Mr. Fillet's room, you were not conscious of it. It was Dr. Chapman who worked all this for you. He threatened to go on strike if any other conclusion were come to. He asked the Head whether he'd ever dreamt he was doing most impossible things. The Head said 'Yes,' and the doctor replied triumphantly: 'Well, don't let your brain get as excited as a child's, or, maybe, if you're feverish and run down, you'll go and do them.' He even suggested that possibly it was not you but the Head who had committed the crime. He asked him if he could imagine 'a silly and excitable kid' (which is an excellent description of Ray) dreaming that he had done what actually was done.... The Head was incredulous at first, but the doctor talked so learnedly about the Subliminal Consciousness and Alternating Personalities that the Head, if only for fear of getting out of his depth, began to yield. I drove home the advantage by saying that I believed you didn't generally lie--which was true, wasn't it?"

"Good Lord, no!" I replied.

"Well, it will be some day." Radley rose and strolled to the door.

"Yes, there's been a slump in Rupert Ray recently, but I'm afraid there'll be a boom in him when he comes back to work, and he'll get too big for his boots. It's a pity. Good-night."

And though Stanley, as we learnt later, had manfully revealed the full story of Doe's sufferings at the hands of the prefects, Radley walked away without giving the young hero one word of admiration.

And as the door shut Doe turned round in his bed, so that his face was away from me, and maintained a wonderful silence.

CHAPTER V

CHEATING

--1

Time carried us a year nearer the shadow of the Great War. It brought us to our fourteenth year, at which period Doe's mysterious intrigue with Freedham still awaited solution, and my Armageddon with Fillet still languished in a sort of trench-warfare.

It was now that our abominable form took to cheating once a week in Fillet's cla.s.s-room. A Roman History lesson left invitingly open the opportunity to do so. For Fillet's method of examining our acquaintance with the chapter he had set to be learnt in Preparation was invariably the same. He asked twenty questions, whose answers we had to write on paper. He would then tell us the answers and allow us to correct our own work. After this he would take down our marks.

Now, our form had been organised by the all-powerful statesman, Pennybet, who had lately been reading the Progressive Papers, into a Trade Union, of which the President was Mr. Archibald Pennybet. He had decided (as it is the business of all trade unions to decide) that we were worked too hard. We must organise to effect an improvement in the conditions of living. To demand from the Head Master an instant reduction in the hours of labour didn't seem feasible to our union of twenty members, but it would be quite easy by a co-operative effort to modify the extent of our Preparation. At a ma.s.s-meeting of the workers Penny outlined his scheme--Penny loved scheming, moving forces, and holding their reins.

It was a marvellous scheme. We were to leave undone our Preparation for the Roman History lesson, and, when Fillet told us the answers, we were to write them down and credit ourselves with the marks.

"It's not cheating," explained our leader in his speech (and we were all very glad, I think, to hear that it wasn't cheating), "because it's not an effort to take an unfair advantage of each other. It's just a cordial understanding, by which we all lessen one another's burdens.

"I and my executive," continued Penny, "have all the details worked out to a nicety. Here is a table for the whole term, showing how many marks each worker will give up week by week. It is so graduated that the clever fellows will end up at the top, and those who would naturally slack will end up at the bottom. My executive has decided that Doe is about the brainiest, so he comes out first"--blushes from Doe--"and I myself am willing to stand at the bottom."

By this revelation of astonis.h.i.+ng magnanimity Penny came out of the transaction, as he did out of most things that he put his hand to, with nothing but credit.

For half a term this comfortable scheme ran as merrily as a stream down hill. And then a strange thing happened to me. I was talking one afternoon to Penny on the absurdities of the Solar System, when I became conscious that my mind had closed upon seven words: "That Rupert, the best of the lot."

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." What on earth had resuscitated those words? I politely bowed them out and continued my conversation. But the phrase had entered like a bailiff into possession of my mind. Even as I put it from me, believing it would be lost in the flow of an absorbing conversation, I knew that there had appeared upon the horizon a cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

"That Rupert, the best of the lot." The words, as first told to me by my mother, had been the dying words of my grandfather, Colonel Rupert Ray, with which he asked repeatedly for his dead son, my father. So the words were uttered by the first Rupert Ray, applied to the second, and recalled by the third at a most inopportune moment. And the third would have bowed them out. Why? Because he was a cheat? No--let us not be ridiculous--because he was in the midst of an important conversation.

I pretended to listen to Penny, but really I was reasoning something else. I was admitting that, now that this little phrase had popped up through some trap-door of my mind, my conscience, long dormant on the cheating theme, would have to be talked round again. And, as something like suspense set in, I was anxious to join issue at once.

I left Penny abruptly and retired to a window (as you will have observed it was my fas.h.i.+on to do), where I leant upon the sill and prepared to argue out the problem.

Our co-operative effort to avoid preparing our lesson, was it wrong?

Yes. In spite of the old sophistry I knew it to be so. But what att.i.tude should one adopt? To refuse publicly to have any part in the system would seem like mock-heroics. The only course open was to learn the work and earn the marks. Inevitably I had arrived at the conclusion which I dreaded. To learn the work seemed a task surprisingly difficult and menacing after half-a-term's freedom. I hugged that freedom. I wished my calm acquiescence in the system had not been ruffled.

To learn the work--it was a little thing surely: to learn it unseen and alone, while other boys went free of the labour, and gave themselves the marks, notwithstanding. But no, I could no more persuade myself that it was a little thing than I could believe that any other course was the right one. I felt it was big--too big for _me_.

Then the old thought, probably not an hour younger than sin itself, was quick to take advantage of my indecision: I would go on as I was a little while longer--till the end of the term--and then begin with a clean sheet. There was much to be said in favour of this: for see, if I were to do the thing thoroughly this term, I ought to forgo all the marks that I had already come by dishonestly. To do that was impossible. The confession involved would court expulsion.

Expulsion! As the word occurred to me, I realised the enormity of my offence. How could I go on with that which, if detected, would mean expulsion? To answer this question I went the whole dreary round of reasoning once more and arrived at the conviction that the straight action was inc.u.mbent upon me; which conviction I hastened to explain away with the same dull casuistry. Sick and weary, I left the window-sill and ceased to think any more. My conscience had given battle to evil and neither lost nor won. Indecisive as the issue was, I knew in my heart of hearts that it partook of the nature of a defeat.

Later on, I wrote to my mother quite an effective a.n.a.lysis of this spiritual difficulty: and I wrote it, so she loves to say, on a postcard, and signed it "yours truly, Rupert Ray." Her reply I could not expect till Wednesday morning, the morning of the lesson. Of that I was glad. For to this extent I had temporised: I would wait till I heard from her before attempting to learn the work. If necessary, I could cram it up on Wednesday morning. And with this settlement I was satisfied in a sickly way.

--2

While Tuesday is pa.s.sing in silence and inaction, and the issue of this crisis is in the bag of the postman, let me tell you something of my relations with my mother. Her love for me, I have said, was of the extravagant kind. It was ever and actively present. Though she discharged her social duties with a peculiar grace, yet I am certain that the thought she bestowed on them was an intruder amongst her thoughts of me. My figure was present to her in the drawing-room, the ball-room, or the theatre.

I fear I was not demonstrative in my affection for her. Perhaps, when we sat alone at dinner on holiday evenings, and her dress was one that left her arms bare, I would think that the softness of the limbs was such as to make one wish to touch them; and I would stroke them; or, when she laid her hand upon the table, I would rest my own hot palm upon it. But I am certain that it was not till our stories marched into the shadow of the Great War that I became at all demonstrative.

Enough of that, then--the postman's feet are on the steps of Bramhall House. May I just ask you to think of my mother as a very gracious lady, gracious in form and feature and character?

--3

When breakfast was over on Wednesday morning, I repaired to the Steward's Room, where letters had to be sought. I was attacked by a feverish nervousness, which increased as I pa.s.sed other boys returning with letters in their hands. Anxiety seemed to be a physical thing deflating my breast and loins. My heart, too, was affected when I asked the Steward with feigned unconcern if there were any letters for Ray. It beat rapidly as I awaited the reply.

None. I was stupefied: but soon stupefaction became anger; anger hardened into sulkiness; and, as more sinister feelings grew, sulkiness lost itself in guilty belief. Now I knew what course I would take--I would go on cheating.

I turned to go out. Since that afternoon when the choice between good and evil came so plainly before me, I had been dilly-dallying at the spot where the two ways met. The more I hesitated, the greater had become the desire to take the easier road. And now in open rebellion against my scruples I stepped firmly upon it. My reasoning was played out, and, as I walked back along the corridor, I felt like one released from irksome fetters. Oh, it was good to be free! At the same time, however, with the obstinacy of one who seeks to justify himself, I muttered: "She might have written, I think, she might have written."

Then a step sounded behind me, a hand touched my shoulder, so that my heart jumped like a startled frog, and Radley said:

"Come and have a talk with me a minute."

--4

My mother had written, but not to her son. The postman, who disappointed me, brought a graceful note to Radley:

"I am most sorry for this trespa.s.s upon your time, and yet I have little hesitation in asking your help in a matter that concerns my son. Rupert, in his talks during the holidays, so often mentions your name, that it is not difficult to see that he owes you a good deal. Although he is too reserved to say so, I fancy he is quite devoted to you. His postcard, which I enclose, will explain all.

"May I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks, and of saying how grateful his father would have been for all that you are doing for our son?"

Radley, when we reached the privacy of his room, took up his favourite position of sitting on the edge of the table. Before him stood I, all reasoning suspended.

"Well, how's the cheating going on?" he asked.

"What ch--?"

"Stop! Don't say 'What cheating?' because that would be acting a lie. I tell you what we'll do. We'll wait a whole minute before you answer me. We'll collect our thoughts and think whether we'll act straightly or crookedly." He took his watch off his chain and placed it upon the table beside him. "Right, we're off."

As the seconds sped by I tried to find some excuses. But, bewildered and sick, I could only wonder how he came to know of it all. I had found no answer when I saw him replacing his watch on his chain.

"Well, Ray, how's the cheating going on?"