Noble in Reason (7 page)

My third and last school provided me, oddly enough, with what in spite of the modern dread of cliché and the recent amusing guying of this cliché in play and film, I can only call the happiest days of my life.

A short time after Graham's departure I won a partial scholarship to a famous northern grammar school. As always when confronted with some ordeal—then as now—I kept my hopes in firm check before the test, reminding myself continually of the possibility of failure, in order to keep my nerves taut and my mind concentrated, while in my heart of hearts I believed I should succeed. My outward modesty of demeanour, however, deceived my family, so that they were astonished when I triumphed—and I, of course, was offended by their astonishment.

I went to this Northchester school, new to me but of ancient
foundation, determined not to repeat my failure in Hudley. At all costs, I said to myself as, pale and excited, I boarded the train the first morning of that autumn term, at all costs I will be like other people this time. But immediately I withdrew this unqualified adherence to the normal. No, I said stubbornly if confusedly to myself, not at all costs. Even to be normal, even to escape persecution, even—absurd hope—to be liked, I would not sacrifice my love of literature. That came first. But almost everything else could be cast before the Moloch of conformity.

In the event, no such sacrifice was demanded of me. I found myself in a class of lads, mostly older than myself, who took schoolwork seriously because examinations loomed ahead on which the whole course of their lives depended. Accordingly every weekday was a joy to me. The solitary early rising in the dark; the tea drunk at ease alone; the rush down the long hill, where on all sides the mill chimneys were pouring out the black smoke of the first firing of the day; the swift powerful train, to catch which gave me a daily sensation of heroic achievement; the adventurous journey along the winding Pennine valleys between stern hills which gradually closed upon us until at last they barred our way and we plunged into the romantically named Summit Tunnel; the excellent teaching, the ever-widening horizon of one's knowledge, the exultant expansion of one's faculties; the justice and decency and reasonableness of school procedure; above all, the sense of separation from my family, all of whom were quite unknown to my schoolfellows—all this was bliss to me. I believed myself to be weighed down with work and took a very serious view of my responsibilities to my time-table, but even then I knew that I had found an environment exactly suited to the Chris Jarmayne organism and was enjoying happiness.

Unfortunately I did not enjoy this fruitful milieu long; I was torn away from it at the end of my first term.

Looking back at this brief experience, I have nothing to add or alter to my feelings then: only to confirm them by what may be regarded as a somewhat sinister fact. The buildings of the Northchester Grammar School, combined with the courtyard of an old Norman castle I had visited with Henry when his old bicycle descended to me, became, when I had left them for ever, the scene of my most vivid and permanent daydream. Even to-day, in moments of distress, anxiety, fatigue or sleeplessness, I visit them from time to time. School, then, was for twenty, thirty years the beloved “other place”, the “private garden”, the abode desired above all others by my heart. In its early form homosexual, this dream soon took on the heterosexual character natural to my development; but the relations of the boys and girls in this co-educational establishment were governed by rules, preposterously distorted of course in order to allow certain (always incomplete) sexual satisfactions but yet modelled on the lines of a traditional public school—as a novelist may model the manners and customs of an imaginary or even fantastic country, Ruritania or Costaguana or Animal Farm, on those of a real nation.

I need not, perhaps, say how bitterly I regret this youthful fantasy which hardened into permanence. I understand now all its implications of infantilism, of flight from manhood, its shirking of adult behaviour and responsibilities, its inhibiting and sterilizing power. Perhaps if I had not been torn away so soon from Northchester its grip would have been less tenacious, its fangs would have lacked the magnetism provided by frustration.

But on the other hand, granted that some daydream, some sheltering fantasy, was necessary to Chris Jarmayne's existence; granted that a weak creature like myself needed some private world into which to escape from over-harsh reality and gain courage to continue the daily struggle; then
possibly this school fantasy was less harmful than some other types. At least it held no sadistic, no masochist enjoyments; its rules embodied a decent and kindly if juvenile code of ethics. But it was not adult. That for many men—and for women too perhaps, though I think more rarely—schooldays are often the happiest days of their lives, strikes me as a fact psychologically most deplorable and dangerous. This fixation is not the fault of the school, of course, but of the adult world for being so inferior in attraction. I often think now, when called upon to address Parent-Teacher or other such associations designed to bring the school world into touch with family life: first that if such organizations had existed in my youth they would have been the end of Chris Jarmayne, for I could not have endured the invasion of my happy world of learning by my family; next that the ability to compose the different spheres of one's life into a unity, a harmonious relation, is perhaps the prime mark of a courageous and well-integrated mind.
(“Connect, connect!”
as E. M. Forster urges.) Any part of one's life which, so to say, slips away from the rest, is apt to turn into a fantasy—of fear or joy as the case may be.

The part played in my school fantasy by the wish-fulfilment Chris Jarmayne is highly significant. His name was never my own, but usually Etherington. My adoption of this variation of my father's name shows at once my fixation on him and my efforts to conquer it by improving and refining on his personality. This Etherington, who as I have said before was never encumbered by a family, had (of course) all my good qualities and none of my bad ones. He was brilliantly clever and wrote—not essays or fiction, because I did that, myself in real life—but wonderful poems. He was strong for justice; he defended the weak, he resisted evil and routed the powerful— these villainous opponents were always rich, elegant and sophisticated, like Graham. After a period of storm and stress, during which he suffered much from the machinations of these
wicked ones, Etherington triumphed and was acclaimed as a leader (or dux or captain or what-have-you) by an overpowering majority of the popular vote. In appearance
chétif
at a casual glance, Etherington was presently discovered by those who loved him to have finely cut and
spirituel
features, somewhat like those of Shelley, and though he laid no claim to permanent ability in games, he often, by tenacity and the application of intelligence, saved the day for the school on the playing-field when all seemed lost.

In later life, I have made quite a study of daydream fantasies as they have been recorded in literature—those of the Brontës, for example, and of Hartley Coleridge; also of fictitious characters such as Maggie Tulliver in
The Mill on the Floss,
Du Maurier's ill-fated pair in
Peter Ibbetson,
Kipling's hero in
The Brushwood Boy,
Barrie's
Sentimental Tommy
and
Mary Rose,
J. D. Beresford's
Jacob Stahl,
Hope Mirrlees'
Madeleine
at the court of Louis XIV, and so on. It is difficult to discern in these cases the exact degree to which the day-dreamer becomes his wish-fulfilment hero or heroine. For my part, I never actually lived inside Etherington's skin; I only
watched
him, though I felt keenly all the sensations I caused him to undergo. I sometimes wonder whether this detachment, this status of onlooker, was indicative and prophetic of my later rôle of novelist.

My fantasies, as I say, were not the fulfilments of evil or markedly anti-social desires; but unfortunately they were usually accomplished by the aid of some older or in some way superior inhabitant of the fantasy—at first male, presently female—who came to Etherington's rescue and support. Rescue: it is unfortunately a key word as long as one turns back to the scenes of one's immaturity for daydreams. Still, I am grateful as I say to Northchester for providing me with such a comparatively noble private world, though I deplore the resultant atrophy of adult impulse.

On the first morning of the holidays after my first term at Northchester I came down early, full of joyous anticipation. The morning delivery of letters tumbled through the letterbox as I entered the hall. I bent over them with my hands clasped scrupulously behind my back so as not to touch, and fortune favoured me: the long envelope with the Northchester postmark was clearly visible. So my school report had arrived; a report which I had every reason to believe was outstandingly good. Smirking happily, I entered the dining-room and waited impatiently for events to take their customary course.

Netta came in, beaming as usual, and we indulged in the childish catchwords and games which we enjoyed. Netta by this time was nine years old; a mane of silky flaxen hair rolled down her shoulders and her complexion was dazzlingly fair, yet she had no pretensions to beauty; a simple little face with upturned nose and mild surprised grey eyes endeared her to her family but made little impact on the outer world. My mother took the pains over Netta's appearance which she too often neglected about her own, and the child always had a very fresh clean white blouse of some material or other, for blouses then were just emerging into ordinary wear. We giggled together, chased each other round the table, and incurred (as usual) the rebuke of Henry, who stalked in bearing the letters and my father's newspaper, which he began to read as far as he could do so without unfolding it. Henry and John took it in
turns at that time to go to the mill before breakfast, and it was evidently John's turn that morning.

My father now entered with hurried step, frowning and drawing out his watch; he crossed the room and vigorously rang the bell. We children all knew how our “cook-general” resented these vehement summonses, and we exchanged glances expressing criticism, as we silently gathered round the table. My father continued to fuss; strode out into the hall and called “Ada! Ada!” impatiently, returned at a trot and examined his watch once more. At length, however, my mother and the breakfast appeared together, grace was said, we seated ourselves, my father helped out the porridge and received his cup of tea. It was usually at this moment that he opened his letters, and I fixed my gaze upon him in eager expectation.

He opened the Northchester letter and drew out the report. “This is your report, Christopher,” he said sternly.

“Yes, father,” said I.

My father cast a glance rapidly down the document, then, frowning, threw it down without a word. The bottom dropped out of my world.

“May I see it, father?” I managed to utter timidly at last.

“Yes—yes,” said my father irritably. He threw it across to me. “It's very good,” he said in a grudging tone; and sighed.

I examined the report, which indeed exceeded even my own high expectations. Henry looked over my shoulder.

“It really is very good, father,” he said at length in a protesting tone.

But my father had already passed on to another envelope.

“This is your report, Netta,” said he. “Let us see what the Miss Craddocks have said about
you”

Netta smiled.

“Tchk! Tchk! Tchk!” exclaimed my father in rising fury as he perused each item in turn. “Arithmetic, poor! Reading, a slight improvement! Dictation, tries hard! Composition,
fair! What shall we do with you, Netta, if you can't get a better report than that! What will become of you, my poor child!”

Netta, utterly overthrown, burst into tears and rushed to my mother's arms.

“I don't want father to scold me. Miss Craddocks never scold me,” she cried.

“Never mind, darling!” said my mother soothingly, drawing Netta to her breast.

“There, there! Never mind! I'm not cross with you, Netta,” explained my father impatiently, a little ashamed. “I just wonder what will become of you when you grow up, that's all.”

“I don't want to grow up. I don't want to be scolded,” wailed poor Netta.

“She'll get married, surely,” said my mother, stroking Netta's hair.

So much fury seethed in my heart that I had difficulty in choking down my food. To see Netta wounded in this way was almost more than I could bear. And my father was so unreasonable, I thought, so unjust. He scolded me for having a good report, Netta for not having one. It was impossible to please him.

At this moment John came in.

“You're late, John,” said my father sharply.

“Am I?” said John. His tone had that pretended innocence which when suspected to be ill-founded has such an insolent ring.

“Don't speak to me in that tone, sir!” snapped my father.

John raised his eyebrows and enquired: “What tone, father?”

“I am perfectly aware of why you are late every morning, John,” said my father. “I will speak to you about it tonight.”

John coloured angrily and was silent.

The holidays thus begun proceeded in the same tense and uneasy atmosphere. Our Christmas rites were muted; the turkey was small, the dessert scanty. It appeared that Henry's bicycle, which had descended to me (because too small for him) in the summer of that year, was to be counted as my Christmas present. I was disappointed and disgusted by this arrangement but not surprised; I thought it characteristic of my father's parsimony. Netta soon recovered from the incident of the report, for she soon forgot it; but both my brothers seemed uncomfortable. It was clear that John was under my father's serious displeasure for some crime unknown to me, while Henry seemed brooding and touchy. As for myself, I took to fainting suddenly at unexpected moments. For some time I managed to conceal this from my family, but an unlucky chance brought it to light.