Chapter VII: Randell House

T HE preliminaries of Michael’s career at St. James’
Preparatory School passed in a dream-like confusion of thought
and action. First of all he waited anxiously in the
Headmaster’s study in an atmosphere of morocco-leather and
large waste-paper baskets. Like every other room in which
Michael had waited, whether of dentist or doctor, the outlook
from the window was gloomy and the prospect within was
depressing. He was glad when Mr. Randell led him and several
other boys towards the First Form, where in a dream, peopled by
the swinging legs of many boys, he learnt from a scarlet book
that while Cornelia loved Julia, Julia returned Cornelia’s
affection. When this fact was established in both English and
Latin, all the boys shuffled to their desks and the record of a
great affection was set down largely and painfully.

1.Cornelia Juliam amat. 2.Julia Corneliam amat.

Blotted and smudged and sprawling though it ultimately
appeared, Michael felt a great satisfaction in having dealt
successfully with two nominatives, two accusatives and a verb.
The first part of the morning passed away quickly in the
history of this simple love. At eleven o’clock a shrill
electric bell throbbed through the school, and Michael, almost
before he knew what was happening, was carried in a torrent of
boys towards the playground. Michael had never felt supreme
loneliness, even at night, until he stood in the middle of that
green prairie of recreation,
distinguishing nobody, a very small creature in a throng of
chattering giants. Some of these giants, who usually walked
about arm in arm, approached him.

“Hullo, are you a new kid?”

Michael breathed his ‘yes.’

“What’s your name?”

With an effort Michael remembered Rodber’s warning and replied simply:

“Fane.”

“What’s your Christian name?”

This was a terribly direct attack, and Michael was wondering whether it would be best to run quickly out of the playground, to keep silence or to surrender the information, when the quick and authoritative voice of Rodber flashed from behind him.

“Fish and find out, young Biden.”

“Who are you calling young, young Rodber?”

“You,” said Rodber. “So you’d jolly well better scoot off and leave this kid alone.”

“Church said I was to collar all the new kids for his army,” Biden explained.

“Did he? Well, this kid’s in our army, so sucks! And you can tell young Church that Pearson and me are going to jolly well lam him at four o’clock,” announced Rodber very fiercely.

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” asked Biden, whose teeth seemed to project farther and farther from his mouth as his indignation grew.

“All right, Toothy Biden,” jeered Rodber. “We’ll tell the whole of your rotten army at four o’clock, when we give you the biggest lamming you’ve ever had. Come on, young Fane,” he went on, and Michael, somewhat perturbed by the prospect of being involved in these encounters, followed at his heels.

“Look here,” said Rodber presently, “you’d better
come and show yourself to Pearson. He’s the captain of our
army; and for goodness’ sake look a bit cheerful.”

Michael forced an uncomfortable grin such as photographers conjure.

Under the shade of a gigantic tree stood Pearson the leader, languidly eating a very small and very unripe pear.

“Hullo, Pinky,” he drawled.

“I say, Pearson,” said Rodber in a reverent voice, “I know this kid at home. He’s awfully keen to be allowed to join your army.”

Pearson scarcely glanced at Michael.

“All right. Swear him in. I’ve got a new oath written down in a book at home, but he can take the old one.”

Pearson yawned and threw away the core of the pear.

“He’s awfully glad he’s going to join your army, Pearson. Aren’t you, young Fane?”

“Yes, awfully glad,” Michael echoed.

“It’s the best army,” said Pearson simply.

“Oh, easily,” Rodber agreed. “I say, Pearson, that kid Biden said Church was going to lam you at four o’clock.”

The offended Pearson swallowed a large piece of a second unripe pear and scowled.

“Did he? Tell the army to line up behind the lav. at four o’clock.”

Rodber’s eyes gleamed.

“I say, Pearson, I’ve got an awfully ripping plan. Supposing we ambush them.”

“How?” enquired the commander.

“Why, supposing we put young Fane and two or three more new kids by the tuckshop door and tell them to run towards the haunted house, we could cop them simply rippingly.”

“Give the orders before afternoon school,” said Pearson curtly,
and just then the bell for ‘second hour’ sounded.

“Wait for me at half-past twelve,” Rodber shouted to Michael as he ran to get into school.

Michael grew quite feverish during ‘second hour’ and his brain whirled with the imagination of battles, so that the landing of Julius Cæsar seemed of minor importance. Tuckshops and haunted houses and doors and ambushes and the languid pale-faced Pearson occupied his thoughts fully enough. At a quarter-past twelve Mr. Whichelo the First Form master told Michael and the other new boys to go to the book-room and get their school caps, and at half-past twelve Michael waited outside on the yellow gravel for Rodber, splendidly proud of himself in a blue cap crested with a cockleshell worked in silver wire. He was longing to look at himself in the glass at home and to show Miss Carthew and Stella and Nanny and Cook and Gladys his school cap.

However, before he could go home Rodber took him round to where the tuckshop ambush would ensue at four o’clock. He showed him a door in a wall which led apparently into the narrow shady garden of an empty house next to the school. He explained how Michael was to hang about outside this door and when the Churchites demanded his presence, he told him that he was to run as hard as he could down the garden towards the house.

“We’ll do the rest,” said Rodber. “And now cut off home.”

As soon as Michael was inside Number 64 he rushed upstairs to
his bedroom and examined himself critically in the
looking-glass. Really the new cap made a great difference. He
seemed older somehow and more important. He wished that his
arms and legs were not so thin, and he looked forward to the
time when like Rodber he would wear Etons. However, his hair
was now pleasantly and inconspicuously straight: he had already
seen boys woefully teazed on account of their curls, and
Michael congratulated
himself that generally his dress and appearance conformed with
the fashion of the younger boys’ dress at Randell’s. It would
be terrible to excite notice. In fact, Michael supposed that
to excite notice was the worst sin anybody could possibly
commit. He hoped he would never excite notice. He would like
to remain perfectly ordinary, and very slowly by an
inconspicuous and gradual growth he would thus arrive in time
at the dignity and honour enjoyed by Rodber, and perhaps even
to the sacred majesty that clung to Pearson. Already he was
going to take an active part in the adventures of school; and
he felt sorry for the boys who without Rodber’s influence
would mildly go straight home at four o’clock.

Indeed, Michael set out for afternoon school in a somewhat elated frame of mind, and when he turned into the schoolyard, wearing the school cap, he felt bold enough to watch a game of Conquerors that was proceeding between two solemn-faced boys. He thought that to try to crack a chestnut hanging on a piece of string with another chestnut similarly suspended was a very enthralling pastime, and he was much upset when one of the solemn-faced antagonists suddenly grabbed his new school-cap and put it in his pocket and, without paying any attention to Michael, went on with the game as if nothing had happened. Michael had no idea how to grapple with the situation and felt inclined to cry.

“I say, give me my cap,” he said at last.

The solemn-faced boys went on in silence with the game.

“I say, please give me my cap,” Michael asked again.

No notice was taken of his appeal and Michael, looking round in despair, saw Rodber. He ran up to him.

“I say, Rodber, that boy over there has got my cap,” he said.

“Well, don’t come sneaking to me, you young ass. Go and smack
his head.”

“Am I to really?” asked Michael.

“Of course.”

Michael was not prepared to withstand Rodber’s advice, so he went up to the solemn-faced boy and hit him as hard as he could. The solemn-faced boy was so much surprized by this attack that he did not for a moment retaliate, and it was only his friend’s gasp ‘I say, what fearful cheek,’ that restored him to a sense of what had happened.

In a moment Michael found himself lying on his back and almost smothered by the solemn-faced boy’s whole body and presently suffering agony from the pressure of the solemn-faced boy’s knees upon his arms pinioned cross-wise. Excited voices chattered about him from an increasing circle. He heard the solemn-faced boy telling his horrified auditors that a new kid had smacked his head. He heard various punishments strongly recommended, and at last with a sense of relief he heard the quick authoritative voice of the ubiquitous Rodber.

“Let him get up, young Plummer. A fight! A fight!”

Plummer got up, as he was told, and Michael in a circle of eager faces found himself confronted by Plummer.

“Go on,” shouted Rodber. “I’m backing you, young Fane.”

Michael lowered his head and charged desperately forward for the honour of Rodber; but a terrible pain in his nose and another in his arm and a third in his chin brought tears and blood together in such quantity that Michael would have liked to throw himself on to the grass and weep his life out, too weak to contend with solemn-faced boys who snatched caps.

Then over his misery he heard Rodber cry, ‘That’s enough. It’s
not fair. Give him back his cap.’ The crowd broke up except for
a few admirers of Rodber, who was telling Michael that he had
done tolerably well for a new
kid. Michael felt encouraged and ventured to point out that he
had not really blabbed.

“You cocky young ass,” said Rodber crushingly. “I suppose you mean ‘blubbed.’”

Michael was overwhelmed by this rebuke and, wishing to hide his shame in a far corner of the field, turned away. But Rodber called him back and spoke pleasantly, so that Michael forgot the snub and wandered for the rest of the dinner-hour in Rodber’s wake, with aching nose, but with a heart beating in admiration and affection.

Within a fortnight Michael had become a schoolboy, sharing in
the general ambitions and factions and prejudices and ideals of
schoolboyhood. He was a member of Pearson’s victorious army; he
supported the London Road Car Company against the London
General Omnibus Company, the District Railway against the
Metropolitan Railway; he was always ready to lam young boarders
who were cheeky, and when an older boarder called him a
‘day-bug’ Michael was discreetly silent, merely registering a
vow to take it out of the young boarders at the first
opportunity. He also learnt to speak without blushing of the
gym. and the lav. and arith. and hols. and ‘Bobbie’ Randell and
‘my people’ and ‘my kiddy sister.’ He was often first with the
claimant ‘ego,’ when someone shouted ‘quis?’ over a broken
pocket-knife found. He could shout ‘fain I’ to be rid of an
obligation and ‘bags I’ to secure an advantage. He was a rigid
upholder of the inviolableness of Christian names as postulated
by Randellite convention. He laid out threepence a week in the
purchase of sweets, usually at four ounces a penny; while
during the beggary that succeeded he was one of the most
persistent criers of ‘donnez,’ when richer boys emerged from
the tuckshop, sucking gelatines and satin pralines and
chocolate creams and raspberry noyau. As for the masters, he
was always ready to hear scandalous rumours about their un-
official lives, and he was one of the first to fly round the
playground with the news that ‘Squeaky’ Mordaunt had distinctly
muttered ‘damn’ beneath his breath, when Featherstone Minor
trod on his toe towards the close of first hour. Soon also with
one of the four hundred odd boys who made up the population of
this very large private school, Michael formed a great
friendship. He and Buckley were inseparable for sixteen whole
weeks. During that time they exchanged the most intimate
confidences. Buckley told Michael that his Christian names were
Claude Arnold Eustace, and Michael told Buckley that he was
called Charles Michael Saxby, and also that his mother was
generally away from home, that his father was dead, that his
governess was called Miss Carthew, that he had a sister who
played the piano and that one day when he grew up he hoped to
be an explorer and search for orchids in Borneo. Sometimes on
Saturday or Wednesday half-holidays Buckley came to tea with
Michael and sometimes Michael went to tea with Buckley, and
observed how well Buckley kept in order his young brothers and
kiddy sisters. Buckley lived close to Kensington Gardens and
rode to school every morning on a London Road Car, which was
the reason of Michael’s keen partizanship of that company. In
the eleven o’clock break between first and second hours,
Michael and Buckley walked arm in arm round the field, and in
the dinner-hour Michael and Buckley shared a rope on the Giant
Stride and talked intimately on the top of the horizontal
ladder in the outdoor gymnasium. During the Christmas holidays
they haunted the banks of the Round Pond and fished for minnows
and sailed capsizable yachts and cheeked keepers. Every night
Michael thought of Buckley and every night Michael hoped that
Buckley thought of him. Even in scholarship they were scarcely
distinguishable; for when at the end of the autumn term Michael
was top of the class in Divinity and English, Buckley headed
the Latin
list. As for Drawing they were bracketed equal at the very
bottom of the form.

Then towards the middle of the Lent term Randell House was divided against itself; for one half of the school became Oxford and the other half Cambridge, in celebration of the boat-race which would be rowed at the end of March. When one morning Michael saw Buckley coming into school with a light blue swallow pinned to the left of his sailor-knot and when Buckley perceived attached to Michael’s sailor-top a medal dependent from a dark blue ribbon, they eyed each other as strangers. This difference of opinion was irremediable. Neither romance nor sentiment could ever restore to Michael and Buckley their pristine cordiality, because Michael was now a despised Oxtail and Buckley was a loathed Cabbage-stalk.

They shouted to one another from the heart of massed factions mocking rhymes. Michael would chant:

“Oxford upstairs eating all the cakes; Cambridge downstairs licking up the plates.”

To which Buckley would retort:

“Cambridge, rowing on and on for ever; Oxford in a matchbox floating down the river.”

Snow fell in February, and great snow-ball fights took place
between the Oxtails and the Cabbage-stalks in which the
fortunes of both sides varied from day to day. During one of
these fights Michael hit Buckley full in the eye with a
snow-ball alleged to contain a stone, and the bitterness
between them grew sharper. Then Oxford won the boat-race, and
Buckley cut Michael publicly. Finally, owing to some alteration
in the Buckley home, Buckley became a boarder, and was able
with sneering voice to call Michael a beastly ‘day-bug.’ Such
was the friendship of Michael and Buckley, which lasted for
sixteen weeks and might not indeed have so much wounded
Michael, when the rupture was made final, if Buckley had proved
loyal to that
friendship. Unfortunately for Michael’s belief in human nature
Buckley one day, stung perhaps by some trifling advantage
gained by day-boys at the expense of boarders, divulged
Michael’s Christian names. He called out distinctly, “Ha! ha!
Charles Michael Saxby Fane! Oh, what a name! Kiddy Michael
Sacks-of-coals Fane!”

Michael regretted his intimacy with one who was not within the circle of Carlington Road. In future he would not seek friends outside Carlington Road and the six roads of the alliance. There all secrets must be kept, and all quarrels locally adjusted, for there Christian names were known and every household had its skeleton of nurse or governess.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Fane did not come home and Miss Carthew assumed
more and more complete control of Number 64, until one day in
spring Nurse suddenly told Michael that she was leaving next
day. Somehow, Nurse had ceased to influence Michael’s life one
way or the other, and he could only feel vaguely uncomfortable
over her departure. Nurse cried a good deal particularly at
saying good-bye to Stella, whom she called her own girl
whatever anybody might say. When Michael perceived Nurse’s
tears he tried hard to drag up from the depths of his nature a
dutiful sentimentality. For the last time he kissed that
puckered monkey-like face, and in a four-wheeler Nurse vanished
without making any difference in the life of Sixty-four, save
by a convenient shifting about of the upstair rooms. The old
night-nursery was redecorated and became for many years
Michael’s bedroom. Miss Carthew slept in Michael’s old big
lonely front room, and Stella slept in a little dressing-room
opening out of it. Down in the kitchen, whence withered Gladys
and the impersonal cook had also vanished, Michael gleaned a
certain amount of gossip and found that the immediate cause of
Nurse’s departure was due to Miss Carthew’s discovery of her
dead drunk in a
kitchen chair. It seemed that Miss Carthew, slim and strong
and beautiful, had had to carry the old woman up to her
bedroom, while Michael lay sleeping, had had to undress and
put her to bed and on the next day to contend with her
asseverations that the collapse was due to violent neuralgia.
It seemed also that for years the neighbourhood had known of
Nurse’s habits, had even seen her on two occasions upset
Stella’s perambulator. Indeed, so far as Michael could gather,
he and Stella had lived until Miss Carthew’s arrival in a
state of considerable insecurity.

However, Nurse was now a goblin of the past, and the past could
be easily forgotten. In these golden evenings of the
summer-term, there was too much going forward in Carlington
Road to let old glooms overshadow the gaiety of present life.
As Mrs. Carthew had prophesied, Michael enjoyed being at school
very much, and having already won a prize for being top of his
class in Divinity and English at Christmas with every prospect
of being top of his class again in the summer, he was anxious
to achieve the still greater distinction of winning a prize in
the school sports which were to be held in July. All the boys
who lived in the Carlington Confederate Roads determined to win
prizes, and Rodber was very much to the fore in training them
all to do him credit. It was the fashion to choose colours in
which to run, and Michael after a week’s debate elected to
appear in violet running-drawers and primrose-bordered vest.
The twin Macalisters, contemporaries of Michael, ran in cerise
and eau-de-nil, while the older Macalister wore ultramarine and
mauve. Garrod chose dark green and Rodber looked dangerously
swift in black and yellow. Every evening there was steady
practice under Rodber, either in canvas shoes from lamp-post to
lamp-post or, during the actual week before the sports, in
spiked running-shoes on the grass-track, with corks to grip and
a temperamental stop-watch to cause many disputes.
It was a great humiliation for the Confederate Roads when
Rodber himself failed to last the half-mile (under 14) on the
day itself. However, the Macalister twins won the sack-race
(under 11) and in the same class Michael won the hundred yards
Consolation Race and an octagonal napkin-ring, so Carlington
Road congratulated itself. In addition to athletic practice
there were several good fights with ‘cads’ and a disagreeable
Colonel had his dining-room window starred by a catapult.
Other notable events included a gas explosion at Number 78,
when the front door was blown across the street and flattened
a passer-by against the opposite wall. There was a burglary at
Number 33 and the housemaid at Number 56 fell backwards from
the dining-room window-sill and bruised her back on the lid of
the dustbin in the area.

With all these excitements to sustain the joy of life Michael
was very happy and, when school broke up for the summer
holidays, he had never yet looked forward so eagerly to the
jolly weeks by the sea. Miss Carthew and Michael and Stella
went to Folkestone that year, and Michael enjoyed himself
enormously. Miss Carthew, provided that she was allowed a prior
inspection, offered no opposition to friendship with strange
children, and Michael joined an association for asking
everybody on the Leas what the time was. The association would
not have been disbanded all the holidays if one of the members
had not asked the time from the same old gentleman twice in one
minute. The old gentleman was so acutely irritated by this that
he walked about the Leas warning people against the
association, until it became impossible to find out the time,
when one really wanted to know. Michael moved inland for a
while after this and fell into Radnor Park pond, when he
returned to the sea and got stung by a jelly-fish while he was
paddling, and read Treasure Island in the depths of his own
particular cave among the tamarisks of the Lower Sandgate Road.

After about a fortnight of complete rest a slight cloud was cast over the future by the announcement at breakfast one morning that he was to do a couple of hours’ work at French every day with a French governess: remembering Madame Flauve, he felt depressed by the prospect. But Miss Carthew found a charming and youthful French governess at a girls’ school, where about half a dozen girls were remaining during the holidays, and Michael did not mind so much. He rather liked the atmosphere of the girls’ school, although when he returned to Randell’s he gave a very contemptuous account of female education to his masculine peers. An incident happened at this girls’ school which he never told, although it made a great impression on his imagination.

One afternoon he had been invited to take tea with the six
girls and Mademoiselle, and after tea the weather being wet,
they all played games in the recreation-room. One of the
smaller girls happened to swing higher than decorum allowed,
and caused Michael to blush and to turn his head quickly and
look intently at houses opposite. He knew that the girl was
unaware of the scandal she had created, and therefore blushed
the deeper and hoped that the matter would pass off quietly.
But very soon he heard a chatter of reproof, and the poor
little girl was banished from the room in disgrace, while all
the other girls discussed the shameful business from every
point of view, calling upon Mademoiselle and Michael to endorse
their censure. Michael felt very sorry for the poor little girl
and wished very much that the others would let the matter drop,
but the discussion went on endlessly and as, just before he
went home, he happened to see the offending girl sitting by a
window with tear-stained face, Michael felt more sorry than
ever and wished that he dared to say a comforting word, to
explain how well he understood it was all an accident. On the
way home, he walked silently, meditating upon disgrace, and for
the
first time he realized something of human cruelty and the lust
to humiliate and submerge deeper still the fallen. At the same
time he himself experienced, in retrospect of the incident, a
certain curious excitement, and did not know whether, after
all, he had not taken pleasure in the little girl’s shame,
whether, after all, he would not have liked to go back and
talk the whole matter out again. However, there was that
exciting chapter in Treasure Island to finish and the
September Boy’s Own Paper to expect. On the next day Michael,
walking with Miss Carthew on the Leas, met General Mace, and
girls’ schools with their curious excitements and blushes were
entirely forgotten. General Mace, it appeared, was an old
friend of Miss Carthew’s father and was staying by himself at
Folkestone. General Mace had fought in the Indian Mutiny and
was exactly what a general should be, very tall with a white
moustache fiercely curling and a rigid back that bent inwards
like a bow and a magnificent ebony walking-stick and a gruff
voice. General Mace seemed to take a fancy to Michael and
actually invited him to go for a walk with him next day at ten
o’clock.

“Sharp, mind,” said the General as he saluted stiffly. “Ten o’clock to the minute.”

Michael spent the rest of the day in asking questions of Miss Carthew about General Mace, and scarcely slept that night for fear he might be late. At nine o’clock, Michael set out from the lodgings and ran all the way to the General’s house on the Leas, and walked about and fidgeted and fretted himself until the clock struck the first chime of ten, when he rang the bell and was shown upstairs and was standing on the General’s hearthrug before the echo of the last chime had died away.

The General cleared his throat and after saluting Michael
suggested a walk. Proudly Michael walked beside this tall old
soldier up and down the Leas. He was told tales
of the Mutiny; he learned the various ranks of the British
Army from Lance-corporal to Field-marshal; he agreed at the
General’s suggestion to aim at a commission in the Bengal
Cavalry, preferably in a regiment which wore an uniform of
canary-yellow. Every morning Michael walked about Folkestone
with General Mace, and one morning they turned into a toy-shop
where Michael was told to choose two boxes of soldiers.
Michael at first chose a box of Highlanders doubling fiercely
with fixed bayonets and a stationary Highland Regimental Band,
each individual of which had a different instrument and
actually a music-stand as well. These two boxes together cost
seven shillings, and Michael was just leaving the shop when he
saw a small penny box containing twelve very tiny soldiers.
Michael was in a quandary. For seven shillings he would be
able to buy eighty-four penny boxes, that is to say one
thousand and eight soldiers, whereas in the two boxes of
Highlanders already selected there were only twelve with
bayonets, twelve with instruments and twelve music-stands. It
was really very difficult to decide, and General Mace declined
to make any suggestion as to which would be the wiser choice,
Michael was racked by indecision and after a long debate chose
the original two boxes and played with his Highlanders for
several years to come.

“Quite right,” said the General when they reached the sunlight from the dusty little toy-shop. “Quite right. Quality before quantity, sir. I’m glad to see you have so much common sense.”

Almost before the holidays seemed to have begun, the holidays
were over. There was a short and melancholy day of packing up,
and a farewell visit through the rain to General Mace. He and
Michael sat for a while in his room, while they talked
earnestly of the Indian Army and the glories of patriotism.
Michael told tales, slightly exaggerated, of the exploits of
Pearson’s army and General
Mace described the Relief of Lucknow. Michael felt that they
were in profound sympathy: they both recognized the splendour
of action. The rain stopped, and in a rich autumnal sunset
they walked together for the last time over the golden puddles
and spangled wetness of the Leas. Michael went through the
ranks of the British Army without a single mistake, and
promised faithfully to make the Bengal Lancers his aim through
youth.

“Punctuality, obedience and quality before quantity,” said the General, standing up as tall and thin as Don Quixote against the sunset glow. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Michael.

They saluted each other ceremoniously, and parted. The next day
Michael was in London, and after a depressing Sunday and an
exciting Monday spent in buying a Norfolk suit and Eton
collars, the new term began with all the excitements of ‘moving
up,’ of a new form-master, of new boys, of seeing who would be
in the Football Eleven and of looking forward to Christmas with
its presents and pantomimes.