The Balliols (54 page)

He wondered what Tallent would have thought of his obituaries. They were lengthy and adulatory enough. But the novels themselves were regarded with interest chiefly because the man who had written
them had been killed on active service. “Another name has been added to that sadly but nobly lengthening list of writers.…” It was as though he had qualified to membership of an honourable company not so much by writing novels as by being killed. When the next poet, painter or novelist was killed Tallent's name would certainly be mentioned. It would be mentioned as often as tribute was paid to war poets and war novelists. He would be a name in a list. He would be remembered for nothing else. No one would bother to ask what he had really stood for. He was pigeon-holed. He had an immortality of a kind.

Hugh also wondered whether Joyce, turning the pages of the
Sketch
or
Tatler
, would recognize in the photograph of a dead soldier the features of her mayfly lover. He wondered, though more casually, whether she was aware that he himself was wounded. He had no news value that would place his photograph in the illustrated weeklies. Thus late in the war, no one as busy as Joyce could be bothered to read through the casualty columns of
The Times
. She was never a prolific correspondent; an occasional postcard, a scrawled note. Once every month or so when she was in the mood, a vivid outpouring of herself on paper. He had only written to her once since his return from leave. She would attribute his silence to the quarrels of that leave. If she troubled to think of him that much.… Was Tallent a solitary surrender, or one of many? Or just the first of many? He did not know. He did not want to know. He wanted to forget; never to see her again; to begin life anew, in the knowledge of this new light on women.

Hugh's wounds proved to be less serious than had been at first feared; but the damage to his lungs through mustard gas was likely to leave him in weak health for life. He would always walk with a limp. Wet weather would be likely to give him rheumatism. He would have to be careful of chills. He must avoid violent exercise: cricket, squash, tennis. He could play golf, but must avoid heavy courses that involved climbing. He was what insurance companies called a bad life, and medical boards marked B3. “You're a lucky devil,” people told him. “They'll never send you back.”

He thought he was pretty lucky. He wouldn't have to rejoin his depot for a year. A good deal of that time he would be on sick leave. He would have all the money that he had saved in the line and in hospital. He would have nothing to spend it on but his own enjoyment, in a London that seemed to have been particularly designed for the entertainment of officers on leave with pay and leisure. He
was not going to miss his opportunities this time. He was going to put
that
lesson to good account.

By Christmas he was well enough to exchange crutches for a heavy indiarubber-ferruled stick. In February he was able to fulfil his promise to Francis of giving a lunch party at the Eversham Hotel to a jealously selected nucleus of the fifth-form table.

It was the first time that he had been to Fernhurst since the summer of 1914. It was remarkable how unchanged it was. London seemed a different city, with its khaki-filled streets and restaurants, its changed lights, its hectic, unceasing animation. But the straw-hatted, black-coated boys who sauntered down Cheap Street and the courts; the bloods with their hands deep-driven in their trouser pockets; the semi-bloods with their hands in their coat pockets; the sixth-formers with walking-sticks and an air of scholarship; the athletes, loud-voiced and conspicuous; the masters in their gowns and mortar-boards, did not seem in any detail different.

The chief shook his head when he told him that.

“It may seem that to you, but in point of fact, it's very different. To begin with, boys are leaving early. Many go at seventeen. Nobody stays on after eighteen. Boys of sixteen are prefects. There are boys of fifteen in the eleven. There's not the same period of transition between the dayroom and the sixth-form table. The prefects haven't the same sense of responsibility. They didn't, as fags, have the discipline of responsible prefects. In fact, they've never been really disciplined at all. Their parents can't give them the attention that they ought to have. Their uncles and elder brothers are at the front. If their fathers aren't in khaki they're either overworking in offices or spending their spare time as special constables. Their mothers are nurses or canteen workers. Nothing's arranged for them; no holidays abroad, no expeditions. They are left far too much to their own devices. They're given too much pocket-money; their parents haven't time to look after them, so they give them money to spend instead. They feel that no one's interested in them, that they are just marking time till they'll be able to join up. They're a very different generation from yours, my dear Balliol. Frankly, I don't care to think what they'll make of the world when they're in charge of it. They're going to be a problem.”

It was the first time that Hugh had realized that such a problem existed. He had known that for Francis' generation the business of readjustment to peace would be difficult; that Francis' was a generation that had fallen between two worlds but he had not visualized the exact nature of those difficulties and their cause.

“Yes,” he thought to himself, “I suppose that is so. Nobody bothers about Francis much. How excited he was about going to France just when the war broke out. The war stopped that, there's been no chance of his going since. Yes, it is true. He comes back for his holidays and nothing's done for him. No children's parties. What does he do with himself? I don't know. Does father know? Does mother know? He never tells me anything; not anything really personal about himself. He talks a lot. But he's secretive in a funny way. He's usually got something to be rebellious over. Yes, that's how it is. I'd never thought of it before.

“It's an entirely new point of view to me,” he told the chief.

“And it's not as though it ended there,” the chief went on. “There's the problem of the masters. The best young masters are at the war. We're left with those who are too old to serve; those who aren't fit to serve, and those who've managed to avoid serving. The boys don't respect them. They rag and grow slack. You can take my word for it, Balliol, there's a thoroughly undisciplined generation going out into the world in about 1920. The War Office would be doing a real service to the ultimate interests of the country if they were to send certain selected officers to work on the staff of public schools. They'd be doing far more good here than they would supervising a sergeant who's instructing a squad in musketry. But of course you can't expect the War Office to see a thing like that. They look on the public schools as O.T.C's. They might send a leather-voiced, wooden-pated major to supervise the corps, but they'd never send an athlete or a scholar to knock a little sense into the lower fourth.”

It was a problem that Hugh had not recognized before. He pondered it thoughtfully on the way back to London. The following morning he wrote a letter to the chief.

“I've been thinking very carefully over what you said,” he wrote. “I shall be on sick leave right through the summer. If I stay in London I shall only get into debt and trouble. It's possible that at Fernhurst I might be of some use. You know the kind of scholar that I am. I probably know less now than I did when my Greek accents used to cause you sleepless nights. But I think that I'm still a lesson or so ahead of the lower forms. And I ragged enough when I was a fag to be up to a good many of the ruses they would try to put past me. Anyhow, if you think I can be of any use to you, I'll be glad and proud to come.”

The letter was answered by a telegram.

“Accept with delight your generous offer. Suggest form-mastership of the Shell.”

The Shell was the form that linked the lower with the middle school. It had the reputation of containing the most hardened ragsters and the stupidest students in the school.

Hugh thought: “I think I can cope with the ragsters, anyhow.”

From an atmosphere of “war-preparedness” at school, Francis returned to an atmosphere of “war-time duty” at North End Road. On the second evening of the holidays the wife of a neighbouring vicar called upon his father. She was a plump, prosperous, modishly-dressed woman in middle life. She spoke in a breathless manner as though the office of good works left her little leisure. She carried a small attaché case which she opened the moment she sat down. It was full of pamphlets, notebooks, papers, letters. She extracted a long bundle, held together by an indiarubber band. The word “Pageant” printed out on a ticket dangled from its corner. Her name was Mrs. Simonds. She had not long been in the neighbourhood. Speedy preferment was promised for her husband.

“I know you are a very busy man, Mr. Balliol. I wouldn't disturb you for worlds; not for worlds. And I know you are not one of my husband's parishioners. But at times like this, I feel, we must all feel, I'm sure you must feel, that we're members of one vast parish. There are no boundaries now; there's so little that we who remain here can do, to show our brave boys that we too know our duty. Not, of course, that you're doing nothing, Mr. Balliol. Your brave son. Magnificent. I can't tell you what I felt when I saw his name in that list. The example he is setting to us all. And then your son-in-law. I think it's magnificent the way the aristocracy has given us the lead. When you think of all the things that were said about them before the war. That terrible Lloyd George. Not that he is terrible any longer, of course. Saviour of his country, my husband calls him. That's why the war's so fine, my husband's always saying. It's brought out the best in everyone, literally in everyone. And what I was thinking, Mr. Balliol, was this: that we ought to do more for the spiritual side of our dear boys when they're on leave. We ought to bring them to us in the way that the Church used; with its mystery plays. We ought to combine the secular with the spiritual; give them something that they'll enjoy; but also something that'll remind them of their duty to a higher cause. Now, my husband's curate, such a charming, such a clever young man,
Mr. Parkinson, has written a little Passion Play. I thought how nice it would be if we could act it on Maundy Thursday. No entrance fee, of course. Just a meeting to make everyone feel what Good Friday is. And I wondered … I know of course what a busy man you are, Mr. Balliol, but it would be so nice, just as an act of devotion, you know, if you would be St. John.”

Balliol smiled. His inquisitiveness led him to the acceptance of many offers that astonished his friends. “Do you ever refuse any invitation?” one of them had asked him. “Not if I'm disengaged. Why should I?” he had replied. He saw no reason now why he should not impersonate St. John. It was something that he had never done before.

Mrs. Simonds' gratitude was so volubly expressed, and with so prodigal an employment of the superlative that Balliol was tempted to present her husband's altar with a Queen Anne reredos, to see how her vocabulary would stand an added strain. She had already described his goodness as “most unique.” He was curious to know what would be the comparative to that. But her conclusion was something of an anti-climax.

“I know that you'll be grateful for your own goodness. It's so little that we can do. We must do all that we can. I'm sure you'll be glad I came to you.”

It was as though she had conferred a favour, rather than Balliol, by giving him the opportunity of doing a righteous act. She had not finished her offices, however. She had yet another prospective recipient of celestial grace. She turned to Francis.

“I know you must feel the same way as your dear father; particularly after the noble example your brother sets you. I'm sure that you'll take the part of one of the Roman soldiers.”

Said Balliol heartily, before his son could reply: “My son will be delighted.”

“He will? But there, I knew he would. An act of real devotion; for our soldiers' sakes. They need all that we can give them. I must go and see Mrs. Mcfadden. I want her to be an angel. In a way, I suppose she's a little old. But then I don't know what there is in the Scriptures to make us think that all the angels were young. And anyhow, the dresses will hide a lot. We have the most splendid dresses. Lady Lovemay has financed us. You know her, of course? No? Ah, but you should. I must try and arrange that, sometime. Such a sweet, such a gracious person. A soul. You can see it in her face. And the first rehearsal. Tomorrow evening, at eight-fifteen. And sharp, if you please.”

The moment the door had closed behind her Francis turned on his father with some indignation.

“I do think you might have asked me what I thought first!”

“If I had, you would have refused, and that would have been a pity. I don't for a moment think that you'll enjoy yourself. But the more you can see now of different kinds of people the better. You'll find yourself in a rut quite soon enough.”

“Oh, well, perhaps you're right.” Francis was so relieved to be given some reason other than “duty to the troops” for doing what he didn't want, that his opposition crumbled.

“And after all, it may be fun.”

It was. In the way that most communal activities contrive to be. There was the team spirit of doing a thing together. There was the interest of meeting new people and the dramatic sense of watching them interact. He was caused some, and his father considerable, entertainment by the conduct of a sallow-faced, bowed-shouldered undergraduate who had been rejected for military service for short sight, varicose veins and a weak heart. He was an earnest student of the drama. The play was written in a blank verse that was frequently reminiscent of Tennyson and William Morris. The ear of the undergraduate was constantly detecting echoes. He would sidle up to the curate, script in hand.