Of Human Bondage (11 page)

  The headmaster, on the other hand, was obliged to be
married and he conducted the school till age began to tell upon
him. When he retired he was rewarded with a much better living than
any of the under-masters could hope for, and an honorary
Canonry.

  But a year before Philip entered the school a great
change had come over it. It had been obvious for some time that Dr.
Fleming, who had been headmaster for the quarter of a century, was
become too deaf to continue his work to the greater glory of God;
and when one of the livings on the outskirts of the city fell
vacant, with a stipend of six hundred a year, the Chapter offered
it to him in such a manner as to imply that they thought it high
time for him to retire. He could nurse his ailments comfortably on
such an income. Two or three curates who had hoped for preferment
told their wives it was scandalous to give a parish that needed a
young, strong, and energetic man to an old fellow who knew nothing
of parochial work, and had feathered his nest already; but the
mutterings of the unbeneficed clergy do not reach the ears of a
cathedral Chapter. And as for the parishioners they had nothing to
say in the matter, and therefore nobody asked for their opinion.
The Wesleyans and the Baptists both had chapels in the village.

  When Dr. Fleming was thus disposed of it became
necessary to find a successor. It was contrary to the traditions of
the school that one of the lower-masters should be chosen. The
common-room was unanimous in desiring the election of Mr. Watson,
headmaster of the preparatory school; he could hardly be described
as already a master of King's School, they had all known him for
twenty years, and there was no danger that he would make a nuisance
of himself. But the Chapter sprang a surprise on them. It chose a
man called Perkins. At first nobody knew who Perkins was, and the
name favourably impressed no one; but before the shock of it had
passed away, it was realised that Perkins was the son of Perkins
the linendraper. Dr. Fleming informed the masters just before
dinner, and his manner showed his consternation. Such of them as
were dining in, ate their meal almost in silence, and no reference
was made to the matter till the servants had left the room. Then
they set to. The names of those present on this occasion are
unimportant, but they had been known to generations of school-boys
as Sighs, Tar, Winks, Squirts, and Pat.

  They all knew Tom Perkins. The first thing about him
was that he was not a gentleman. They remembered him quite well. He
was a small, dark boy, with untidy black hair and large eyes. He
looked like a gipsy. He had come to the school as a day-boy, with
the best scholarship on their endowment, so that his education had
cost him nothing. Of course he was brilliant. At every Speech-Day
he was loaded with prizes. He was their show-boy, and they
remembered now bitterly their fear that he would try to get some
scholarship at one of the larger public schools and so pass out of
their hands. Dr. Fleming had gone to the linendraper his father –
they all remembered the shop, Perkins and Cooper, in St.
Catherine's Street – and said he hoped Tom would remain with them
till he went to Oxford. The school was Perkins and Cooper's best
customer, and Mr. Perkins was only too glad to give the required
assurance. Tom Perkins continued to triumph, he was the finest
classical scholar that Dr. Fleming remembered, and on leaving the
school took with him the most valuable scholarship they had to
offer. He got another at Magdalen and settled down to a brilliant
career at the University. The school magazine recorded the
distinctions he achieved year after year, and when he got his
double first Dr. Fleming himself wrote a few words of eulogy on the
front page. It was with greater satisfaction that they welcomed his
success, since Perkins and Cooper had fallen upon evil days: Cooper
drank like a fish, and just before Tom Perkins took his degree the
linendrapers filed their petition in bankruptcy.

  In due course Tom Perkins took Holy Orders and
entered upon the profession for which he was so admirably suited.
He had been an assistant master at Wellington and then at
Rugby.

  But there was quite a difference between welcoming
his success at other schools and serving under his leadership in
their own. Tar had frequently given him lines, and Squirts had
boxed his ears. They could not imagine how the Chapter had made
such a mistake. No one could be expected to forget that he was the
son of a bankrupt linendraper, and the alcoholism of Cooper seemed
to increase the disgrace. It was understood that the Dean had
supported his candidature with zeal, so the Dean would probably ask
him to dinner; but would the pleasant little dinners in the
precincts ever be the same when Tom Perkins sat at the table? And
what about the depot? He really could not expect officers and
gentlemen to receive him as one of themselves. It would do the
school incalculable harm. Parents would be dissatisfied, and no one
could be surprised if there were wholesale withdrawals. And then
the indignity of calling him Mr. Perkins! The masters thought by
way of protest of sending in their resignations in a body, but the
uneasy fear that they would be accepted with equanimity restrained
them.

  "The only thing is to prepare ourselves for
changes," said Sighs, who had conducted the fifth form for five and
twenty years with unparalleled incompetence.

  And when they saw him they were not reassured. Dr.
Fleming invited them to meet him at luncheon. He was now a man of
thirty-two, tall and lean, but with the same wild and unkempt look
they remembered on him as a boy. His clothes, ill-made and shabby,
were put on untidily. His hair was as black and as long as ever,
and he had plainly never learned to brush it; it fell over his
forehead with every gesture, and he had a quick movement of the
hand with which he pushed it back from his eyes. He had a black
moustache and a beard which came high up on his face almost to the
cheek-bones, He talked to the masters quite easily, as though he
had parted from them a week or two before; he was evidently
delighted to see them. He seemed unconscious of the strangeness of
the position and appeared not to notice any oddness in being
addressed as Mr. Perkins.

  When he bade them good-bye, one of the masters, for
something to say, remarked that he was allowing himself plenty of
time to catch his train.

  "I want to go round and have a look at the shop," he
answered cheerfully.

  There was a distinct embarrassment. They wondered
that he could be so tactless, and to make it worse Dr. Fleming had
not heard what he said. His wife shouted it in his ear.

  "He wants to go round and look at his father's old
shop."

  Only Tom Perkins was unconscious of the humiliation
which the whole party felt. He turned to Mrs. Fleming.

  "Who's got it now, d'you know?"

  She could hardly answer. She was very angry.

  "It's still a linendraper's," she said bitterly.
"Grove is the name. We don't deal there any more."

  "I wonder if he'd let me go over the house."

  "I expect he would if you explain who you are."

  It was not till the end of dinner that evening that
any reference was made in the common-room to the subject that was
in all their minds. Then it was Sighs who asked:

  "Well, what did you think of our new head?" They
thought of the conversation at luncheon. It was hardly a
conversation; it was a monologue. Perkins had talked incessantly.
He talked very quickly, with a flow of easy words and in a deep,
resonant voice. He had a short, odd little laugh which showed his
white teeth. They had followed him with difficulty, for his mind
darted from subject to subject with a connection they did not
always catch. He talked of pedagogics, and this was natural enough;
but he had much to say of modern theories in Germany which they had
never heard of and received with misgiving. He talked of the
classics, but he had been to Greece, and he discoursed of
archaeology; he had once spent a winter digging; they could not see
how that helped a man to teach boys to pass examinations, He talked
of politics. It sounded odd to them to hear him compare Lord
Beaconsfield with Alcibiades. He talked of Mr. Gladstone and Home
Rule. They realised that he was a Liberal. Their hearts sank. He
talked of German philosophy and of French fiction. They could not
think a man profound whose interests were so diverse.

  It was Winks who summed up the general impression
and put it into a form they all felt conclusively damning. Winks
was the master of the upper third, a weak-kneed man with drooping
eye-lids, He was too tall for his strength, and his movements were
slow and languid. He gave an impression of lassitude, and his
nickname was eminently appropriate.

  "He's very enthusiastic," said Winks.

  Enthusiasm was ill-bred. Enthusiasm was
ungentlemanly. They thought of the Salvation Army with its braying
trumpets and its drums. Enthusiasm meant change. They had
goose-flesh when they thought of all the pleasant old habits which
stood in imminent danger. They hardly dared to look forward to the
future.

  "He looks more of a gipsy than ever," said one,
after a pause.

  "I wonder if the Dean and Chapter knew that he was a
Radical when they elected him," another observed bitterly.

  But conversation halted. They were too much
disturbed for words.

  When Tar and Sighs were walking together to the
Chapter House on Speech-Day a week later, Tar, who had a bitter
tongue, remarked to his colleague:

  "Well, we've seen a good many Speech-Days here,
haven't we? I wonder if we shall see another."

  Sighs was more melancholy even than usual.

  "If anything worth having comes along in the way of
a living I don't mind when I retire."

  A year passed, and when Philip came to the school
the old masters were all in their places; but a good many changes
had taken place notwithstanding their stubborn resistance, none the
less formidable because it was concealed under an apparent desire
to fall in with the new head's ideas. Though the form-masters still
taught French to the lower school, another master had come, with a
degree of doctor of philology from the University of Heidelberg and
a record of three years spent in a French lycee, to teach French to
the upper forms and German to anyone who cared to take it up
instead of Greek. Another master was engaged to teach mathematics
more systematically than had been found necessary hitherto. Neither
of these was ordained. This was a real revolution, and when the
pair arrived the older masters received them with distrust. A
laboratory had been fitted up, army classes were instituted; they
all said the character of the school was changing. And heaven only
knew what further projects Mr. Perkins turned in that untidy head
of his. The school was small as public schools go, there were not
more than two hundred boarders; and it was difficult for it to grow
larger, for it was huddled up against the Cathedral; the precincts,
with the exception of a house in which some of the masters lodged,
were occupied by the cathedral clergy; and there was no more room
for building. But Mr. Perkins devised an elaborate scheme by which
he might obtain sufficient space to make the school double its
present size. He wanted to attract boys from London. He thought it
would be good for them to be thrown in contact with the Kentish
lads, and it would sharpen the country wits of these.

  "It's against all our traditions," said Sighs, when
Mr. Perkins made the suggestion to him. "We've rather gone out of
our way to avoid the contamination of boys from London."

  "Oh, what nonsense!" said Mr. Perkins.

  No one had ever told the form-master before that he
talked nonsense, and he was meditating an acid reply, in which
perhaps he might insert a veiled reference to hosiery, when Mr.
Perkins in his impetuous way attacked him outrageously.