Lord Dismiss Us (8 page)

There was another who gave out the morning milk and biscuits; supposedly a Prefect’s duty. There were five or six who assisted Matron in the dispensary; though this was maybe different, because they were all more or less in love with her. It irked him on account of the vague possibility that they might be helping; that is, playing their parts as crew members. Something he had refused to do. But, no, no . . . it was because it made them feel important. Anyhow, Metcalfe understood the bellrope, and it was lucky.

Naylor had to do it now, since everyone except the Chapel Prefects had to assemble for Roll Call in the Cloisters, in the fifteen-minute interval between bells. It was almost time for the first bell.

Naylor’s dark foreignness was emphasised by the white surplice. There was a Southern warmth about him. Carleton felt drawn. He had been conducting a humorous flirtation with Naylor for two terms. He was a quiet and tantalising fellow, who showed amusement and neither encouraged nor dissuaded. They met seldom – only on Chapel business. The Chaplain had brought them together. (Naylor was six months older than Carleton, but he was in Remove and, surprisingly, did Farming).

Carleton was tempted to put an arm around him now. He thought if the silent group of parents seated in the wrong places could grasp
that
, they would really be beginning to grasp something.

‘Right,’ said Naylor, and he raised up his olive-skinned hands and pulled down the rope.

The bell boomed out. It was a splendid bell. (There were reports of salvage from the Spanish Armada). It rang out over the organ. Old Kingsly went on extemporising. He played wonderfully, and Carleton was looking forward to a series of late-Sunday-night Bach Preludes and Fugues, promised later in the Term. It was also Old Kingsly who composed the end-of-Term ‘musicals’.

Minutes later, the Chapel Square, and the Quad and the Cloisters below, began to fill with boys in white. For timid souls, a surplice mislaid was a frightening experience. Extra ones were kept in the Linen Room, but this meant finding the fierce Miss Bull, confessing, and persuading her to open up. The alternative was complete exposure before all, including the Head, and a severe reprimand from the Head Prefect of one’s House.

Lucretia Crabtree appeared in the doorway, in a grey pullover and tartan skirt; looking pretty except that her hair was unkempt and she was scowling.

‘They told me to come ahead,’ she said.

She was old enough to make Carleton feel awkward.

‘Oh. Do you know where to sit?’

Without answering, she went into the Head’s pew, and along it to the end, sitting behind Dr Kingsly’s back. Like the other masters, he wore his black gown and vividly coloured hood. They all had degrees; even Jimmy Rich with his old B.A. The Precentor was a Doctor of Music.

Carleton felt rather sorry for her; so much alone in this male academy.

Naylor let the bell ring itself out; and immediately they heard the Senior Prefect’s serjeant-major bark – ‘Shut up! Silence!’

Since there was nothing more for him to do, Carleton wandered across and joined his fellow Prefects in the two alcoves, overlooking the Cloisters.

‘Is it going to be a hit?’ whispered Johns.

‘Depends on Henry Irving,’ said Carleton.

Steele was standing alone, out in the middle, holding the Roll Call list.

Down below, the boys were formed in two lines away to the oak door at the end, through which the Staff would later emerge. Conventionally angelic, they looked – even the worst rogues – all in white, with their hair combed.

At last the tumult petered out, in whispers, and Steele began: –

‘Allen.’

‘Present.’

‘Andrews.’

‘Present.’

Carleton felt a little tug round about the heart, and then a sense of guilt. It had been so prompt and unexpected; the very first on the whole list. He was standing about half-way along. Black hair combed in a wave on his forehead. Whispering to the boy beside him. For heavens sake stop that, Steele will call you out. Whispering to Draper, an awful fool!

He couldn’t look away from him, and he thought that Johns must be noticing. Johns acted aloof – (he really
was
the Cynic) – but he didn’t miss much.

‘See you at the Show,’ Carleton whispered, and he went back up to the Chapel, where Naylor was getting ready to ring the Second Bell.

‘Wainwright.’

‘Present.’

‘Wallace.’

‘Present.’

‘Young.’

‘Present.’

Naylor gripped the rope, and pulled.

This whole little world moved silently into position; members of the Choir occupying the first section of the Chapel. Carleton, who was a Bass, went up to an end seat at the back.

In the greater section of the Chapel, older boys, though free from the demands of Music, also gravitated to the back rows – where Masters joined them. (There was similar positioning in classrooms). These self-promotions occurred with strange ease and naturalness. No one ever moved back before his time. The knowledge of one’s
place in this society became instinctual.

An even odder fact was that the ability to sing – up to Choir standard – went with a definite type. There wasn’t a single ‘Hearty’ in the Choir; there wasn’t even a player of games, except for Carleton. Once again, he was the only one.

At least, he
had
been. But he now saw that Allen was in the third Choir row opposite, behind the altos and trebles. Old Kingsly had passed him as a tenor – he must have cracked.

All were standing. The Masters were parading in now. Very colourful. Carleton watched Ashley go over the far side, and wondered what his hood represented. He had never wondered before, but he would soon be entering that other world. The trooping-in was now approaching its climax – namely, the Chaplain. Roly, The Pedant and The Cod, who was a robust and sporty type, and a danger on the rugger field, came into the stall at Carleton’s right hand, and stood with their backs to the wooden screen. Roly, the first in, was within whispering distance, and would often send Carleton about the place, distributing hymn-books and so on. Opposite, the Crabtrees joined their daughter in the corresponding stall. Mrs Crabtree was not sporting academic garments, but wore her customary tweed suit. And then there was a hiatus.

The Chaplain always left this gap, for the purpose of his entrance.
Its length was perfectly calculated between expectation and irritation. When the former had reached its peak, in he swept; in a tent of white lace, with his face set, and his buckled shoes squeaking with each step.

There was a theory that he had some method of putting those squeaks into his shoes. They were always there. And no more revealing comment on the man’s presence in church could be made than this: while others would be deflated, and put to ridicule, by such an impediment, in the Chaplain’s case – and in a community in which ridicule was almost a way of life – the squeaks were a source of awe. Because the Chaplain seemed not only impervious to them, but actually appeared to have embraced them as an addition to the ceremonial, they
increased
his importance. At several points in the Service, over two hundred silent people heard no other sound in the building. No one even smiled.

This was one such moment. But the squeaks stopped. The Chaplain had halted in the aisle. He crossed himself elaborately, bowed low to the altar, spun away on his heels and up to a back row corner seat, opening the book he carried and announcing, in an unearthly voice: ‘Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities.’

Adding to this ambiguous demand, or request: ‘Psalm fifty-one. Verse nine.’

‘I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me,’ the Chaplain announced. ‘Psalm fifty-one. Verse three.’

Everybody knelt. Dr Rowles was somehow the undeclared leader in all such moves. Anyone in doubt looked his way. In psalms and hymns his loud voice hit the first word, pronto.

‘Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness. . . .’

An extraordinary baying sound: the words pronounced with impressive precision, but at an astonishing speed. The Chaplain did not appear to wish them to hold any meaning; but to be rather a fast-running accompaniment to his one wailing note. So that it was only a moment before the company was confirming gross behaviour of every possible kind.

Miserable offenders, with no health in them, they had been doing the wrong things and not doing the right things, and they had strayed from God’s ways like lost sheep.

The number of boys disturbed about – never mind conscious of – manifold sins and wickedness, must have been countable on one hand. But the mere vocal repetition of corruption, week after week, was calculated to create a conscience, or sense of guilt, which would last a lifetime; and this was perhaps the main idea.

The Chaplain rose and absolved them all. They said the Lord’s Prayer, and they sang a psalm, with Rowles coming in before anyone else – ‘Help me, Lord, for there is not one godly man left.’ – and then the hymn, ‘
J
erusalem, the golden, with milk and honey blest.’ Everyone let go on this. There had been no Choir Practice yet, and harmonies were uncertain. The Beard’s quavering tenor rang out above everyone – and his beard quavered too. (Mr Dotterel could take this off to perfection).

Then Rowles went up to read the First Lesson, murmuring to Carleton behind his cupped hand: ‘We’d better have the lights.’

It was true: it had been growing dark. Carleton slipped out into the ante-chapel and switched them on.

No squeaks from Rowles as he went up the aisle. No sound at all, even on pink flags, from his spongy shoes. His gown was huge and it covered them. Boys in back rows just saw the great head moving past. He might have been running on wheels.

And now at last they could all sit down and examine each other!

As Rowles began reading, the Head – perhaps the only staff member not wearing a poker-face – was not following in his Bible, but looking about as if he wanted to see everybody, and with a benevolent expression as if he wished to make friends with them all. His wife was staring at her Bible. Ashley was tweaking his nose. There was a note being passed along the row in front of him, to the accompaniment of suppressed giggles. Steele, sitting nearby, had noticed, and two of those involved were going to be in trouble.

The only people missing were the Matron and Miss Bull. There were two places for them in the Head’s stall, but the late Greville Wilks being unmarried, Chapel had seemed to them an embarrassingly all-male affair, and they had attended seldom. The new dispensation left them in uncertainty; both awaited instructions.

Otherwise, everyone was here. They were all securely together. It was their world. It
was
the world. White and bright and warm, and safe . . . with the Sermon to come. New Boys began to feel part of the company. The Head experienced an involvement, and a new sense of pride.

Rowles was reading from the Book of Samuel, about the witch of Endor. Carleton was most surprised, because he had always supposed her to be a witch from some rural English town, or possibly one from the Macbeth country. He could not help thinking that Mrs Crabtree would make a frightfully good witch. She was already known as ‘Ma Crab’; while her husband was ‘The Crab’, and sometimes, on account of his complexion, ‘The Lobster’.

‘Here endeth the First Lesson.’

The Chaplain rose. They knelt. The Chaplain, having waited till Rowles was back in place, prayed. Rowles looked quickly across at Ashley: this prayer was possibly unfortunate, maybe a little curious – he would go no further – and Ashley always cleared his throat in an aggressive manner as soon as it began, and Rowles went in constant fear of some more specific demonstration. He had pointed out to Ashley that it was the Founder’s own composition; it summarised that good man’s superior aspirations for Weatherhill; and there was no help for it. Ashley refused to listen. A very curious fellow.

That unfortunate hoicking noise had now, of course, become a School joke. Once they had made their point these fellows could never resist Performing.
He
never performed. He genuinely disliked noise . . . and so on . . . it was. . . . The really curious thing was the way that quite extraordinary bird, the Chaplain, carried on as if nothing had happened. He was a cool customer.

‘Oh God, who hath caused our School to be set upon a hill . . .’

Ashley hoicked – louder than usual. There were snorts and giggles around the Chapel. Mr Crabtree’s face came out of his hands and he looked about, like a bewildered bird.

The Chaplain’s wailing monotone continued unabated.

‘. . . let us rise above the sins of avarice and envy which afflict the world below. . . .’

The Head relaxed, and tried to pray too. It was a prayer after his heart; it expressed his own aspirations. He had perhaps misjudged the Chaplain.

So the Service continued, and expectation grew. The Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, the Creed (all turning towards the altar); Steele reading, with difficulty, from the New Testament – (it would be Carleton’s turn next week – he held the Reader’s Prize); another hymn, ‘Strong Son of God, Immortal Love,’ by Lord Tennyson; and at last, as the final verse is sung, up he goes!

The Chaplain always disdained the pulpit. He stood at the centre of the altar-step, and spoke directly down the aisle.

He read from the Bible, without informing them from whence – ‘Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.’

Mrs Crabtree quietly raised her eyes from floor to roof.

The Chaplain deposited the Book on a stone ledge near the pulpit.

‘This summer term is, as you should all know, the term in which certain among us will present themselves at the solemn and profound ritual of Confirmation. They will be admitted to full communion, as Christians. They will come to share at last. . . .’

This was mere Preamble. Most of them let it pass. There was no clue as yet as to whether it
was
going to be the Burning Fire. He was clever: in order to keep them guessing he never used the same text.

He had been speaking for quite a while, when two staccato utterances halted the flow, and captured all ears.

Suddenly, Recognition was spread in varying quantities among the audience. In fact, there were two or three brilliant imitators – one of them being Mr Dotterel – who could carry on from here to the end.

‘Christians . . . Christianity. . . .’

The Chaplain let the words fall into the arena, and slowly scanned the entire congregation; and appeared to be measuring the quality of reaction in each face. Many eyes were lowered before his dark stare.